THE   BEACON  BIOGRAPHIES 

EDITED    BY 

M.  A.  DEWOLFE  HOWE 


THOMAS   JEFFERSON 

BY 

THOMAS    E.   WATSON 


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THOMAS    JEFFERSON 


THOMAS    E.  WATSON 


BOSTON 

SMALL,   MAYNARD  &  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 

,.^°° 


Copyright,  1900 
By  Small,  Maynard  &  Company 

(Incorporated) 


Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall 


The  frontispiece  to  this  volume  is  from 
an  original  crayon  drawing  made  by  St. 
Memin  in  1805,  now  owned  by  John  C. 
Bancroft,  Esq.,  Boston.  The  present  en 
graving  is  by  John  Andrew  &  Son, 
Boston. 


M223675 


PEEFACE. 

Mr.  Jefferson1  s  name  is  one  which  causes 
men  to  differ,  and  to  fall  into  heated  debate. 
There  are  those  who  say  that  modern  America 
is  Jefferson,  and  those  who  declare  that  his 
political  principles  have  long  since  been  cast 
into  the  trash-pile.  Some  of  the  wise  men 
say  that,  of  all  the  fathers,  he  was  the  most 
far-sighted,  understood  the  people  the  best, 
and  had  the  correctest  idea  of  the  demo 
cratic-republican  theory  of  government. 
Other  men,  equally  wise  so  far  as  I  know, 
affirm  in  the  strongest  terms  that  Jefferson 
did  not  possess  enough  constructive  ability  to 
manufacture  apolitical  chicken- coop.  Be 
tween  sages  so  far  apart,  seekers  after  the 
truth  will  probably  find  it. 

In  the  narrow  limits  allowed  me  it  has 
been  impossible  to  paint  a  life-size  picture 
of  Mr.  Jefferson.  He  was  a  many-sided 
man,  complex  in  character,  full  of  contra 
dictions,  and  yet  in  his  devotion  to  what  he 
conceived  to  be  the  best  interests  of  humanity 


x  PEEFACE 

grandly  consistent.  Farmer,  scientist, 
architect,  inventor,  scholar,  lawyer,  states 
man,  and  philosopher,  he  is  interesting 
from  every  point  of  view, — one  of  the  few 
men  whom  the  greed  for  gold  never  soiled; 
one  of  the  few  who,  from  first  to  last, 
worked  for  country  and  for  fellow-man. 
I  have  had  no  space  for  his  speculative 
opinions,  for  his  political  theories,  for  his 
daring  suggestions  in  science,  mechanical 
arts,  education,  and  state  socialism.  It  has 
been  my  purpose  to  steer  clear  of  the  con 
troversial,  and  to  follow  the  plain  road  of 
fact.  Just  as  the  truth  seems  to  be,  so  I 
have  tried  to  write. 

T.  E.  w. 

THOMSON,  GA.,  June,  1900. 


CHBONOLOGY. 

1743 

April  2.  Thomas  Jefferson  was  born  in 
Albemarle  County,  Virginia. 

1762 

Graduated  from  the  College  of  William 
and  Mary  at  Williamsburg. 

1763-66 

Continued  his  studies  at  home.  Bead 
law  under  George  Wythe,  of  Williams- 
burg. 

1767 
Admitted  to  the  bar,    and    began  the 

practice  of  law. 

1769 

Elected  to  represent  Albemarle  County 
in  the  House  of  Burgesses. 

1770-71 

Practised  law.  Conducted  his  farming 
operations.  Bead  and  studied. 

1772 

January  1.  Married  Martha  Skelton, 
widow. 


xii  CHBONOLOGY 

1773 

Elected  again  a  member  of  House  of 
Burgesses.  Wrote  the  ' i  Summary  View ' ' 
of  the  causes  of  the  troubles  between 
Great  Britain  and  the  American  colonies. 

1774 

Elected  to  Congress,  and  made  chairman 
of  Committee  of  Congress  to  draft  the 
Declaration  of  Independence. 

1776 

Elected  to  lower  house,  Virginia  General 
Assembly.  Assisted  in  revision  of  laws. 
Secured  abolition  of  entails  and  primo 
geniture,  also  separation  of  Church  and 
State.  Was  defeated  in  effort  for  relig 
ious  liberty. 

1779 
Elected  Governor  of  Virginia, 

1780 
Ee-elected. 

1781 

Narrowly  escaped  capture  by  British. 
Prepared  Notes  on  Virginia. 


CHEONOLOGY  xiii 

1782 
September  6.     His  wife  died. 

1783-84 

Elected  to  Congress  by  state  legislature 
of  Virginia.  On  his  report  the  dollar 
made  the  unit  of  value  of  United  States 
coinage. 

1784-85 

Appointed  by  Congress  minister  to 
Europe  to  negotiate  treaties  of  com 
merce. 

1785-89 

Appointed  minister  to  France,  to  suc 
ceed  Dr.  Franklin,  and  held  the  posi 
tion  through  1786, 1787,  1788,  and  1789. 

1790-94 

Secretary  of  State  in  cabinet  of  Presi 
dent  Washington.  Eesigned  at  end  of 
1793. 

1796 

Chosen  Vice- President.  Published 
Manual  of  Parliamentary  Practice. 


xiv  CHBONOLOGY 

1798 
Drafted  "  Kentucky  Kesolutions." 

1800-1801 

Candidate  for  President.  Tie  between 
him  and  the  Vice-Presidential  candi 
date.  Threw  election  into  House  of 
Bepresentatives,  where  he  was  elected 
February,  1801. 

1803 
Louisiana  purchased. 

1804 
Ee-elected  President. 

1807 
Embargo  laid. 

1809-15 

Second  Presidential  term  expired.  Be- 
tired  to  Monticello.  Lived  in  retire 
ment.  Farmed  and  conducted  extensive 
correspondence. 

1816 
Founded  University  of  Virginia. 


CHBONOLOGY  xv 

1816-26 

Continued  in  retirement  at  Monticello. 
Greatly  distressed  by  debt. 

1826 

July  4.     Thomas  Jefferson    died  at  his 
home,  Monticello. 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON 


THOMAS    JEFFERSON.     V 
I. 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON  was  born  in  Al- 
bemarle  County,  Virginia,  April  2,  1743, 
old  style. 

The  Jeffersons,  a  middle- class  family, 
claimed  Welsh  descent,  and  had  been 
among  the  first  settlers  in  Virginia. 
One  of  the  name  had  represented  Flower 
de  Hundred  in  the  colonial  Assembly 
of  1619. 

Peter  Jefferson,  the  father  of  the 
statesman,  was  born  in  1708,  was  the 
son  of  a  farmer  who  lived  at  Osborne's 
on  the  James,  and  made  his  way  in  the 
world  by  sheer  force  of  character.  Like 
Washington,  he  became  a  land  sur 
veyor.  Like  Washington,  he  married 
well.  Jane  Randolph,  whom  he  wedded 
in  1738,  was  a  daughter  of  the  proudest 
and  wealthiest  of  the  old  Virginia 
houses,  her  father  being  Isham  Ran 
dolph,  adjutant-general  of  the  colony. 


2  THOMAS   JEFFERSON 

Patenting  a  thousand  acres  of  land  on 
the  Rivanna,  almost  in  the  wilderness, 
Peter  Jefferson  cleared  off  the  forest, 
built  a  comfortable  dwelling,  and  called 
the  place  Shadwell,  in  honour  of  his 
wife's  London  birthplace. 

When  the  county  of  Albemarle  was 
created,  1744,  Peter  Jefferson  was  made 
one  of  its  original  justices  ;  and  he  con 
tinued  to  hold,  one  after  another,  the 
most  important  county  offices. 

A  member  of  the  Church  of  England, 
he  acted  as  vestryman  for  many  years  ; 
and  his  children  were  baptized  in  the 
faith  of  that  church.  Ambitious  and 
progressive,  he  valued  learning,  and 
took  a  keen  interest  in  giving  to  his 
children  the  early  advantages  he  had 
not  himself  enjoyed.  On  his  death-bed 
he  directed  that  his  eldest  son,  Thomas 
Jefferson,  should  receive  a  thorough 
classical  education.  He  died  in  1757, 
leaving  a  comfortable  estate,  eight  chil 
dren,  and  a  widow  who  survived  until 
1776. 


THOMAS   JEFFEBSON  3 

Few  Americans,  a  hundred  years 
ago,  had  better  training  than  that  which 
guided  Thomas  Jefferson.  At  the  age 
of  five  he  was  sent  to  school ;  but  pa 
rental  duties  were  not  shirked,  nor  home 
lessons  neglected.  The  father  aided  the 
son  at  every  early  step,  helped  him  on 
with  his  studies,  directing  him  with  wise 
counsel.  The  boy  was  encouraged  to 
take  physical  exercise  —  to  swim,  row, 
ride  horseback,  hunt  —  so  that  mind  and 
body  developed  together  ;  and  both  were 
healthy  and  strong. 

After  his  father's  death,  Thomas  Jef 
ferson  was  sent  to  the  boarding-school 
of  the  Eev.  James  Maury,  and  remained 
there  two  years.  Eeady  then  for  col 
lege,  he  was  sent  to  William  and 
Mary,  the  only  university  in  Virginia 
at  that  time. 

"  Old  William  and  Mary  "  was  not  a 
college  to  boast  of  very  loudly,  the 
management  being  feeble,  the  discipline 
lax,  and  the  moral  tone  disquieting  to 


4  THOMAS  JEFFEKSON 

the  righteous.  Still,  a  student  who  was 
determined  to  learn  could  do  so  even 
at  William  and  Mary.  Happily,  young 
Jefferson  was  a  scholar  of  this  class. 
He  entered  half  advanced,  studied  hard, 
and  made  rapid  headway. 

Eelated,  through  his  mother,  to  the 
best  people  in  the  colony,  Jefferson  was 
warmly  welcomed  at  Williamsburg,  and 
during  his  first  year  at  college  went 
much  into  society. 

In  those  days  the  old  colonial  capital 
considered  itself  a  very  fashionable  and 
aristocratic  centre,  being  particularly 
magnificent  in  the  winter  months,  when 
the  General  Court  and  the  burgesses 
were  in  session.  The  great  "  Tobacco 
Lords,"  coming  up  to  court  pompously 
and  somewhat  heavily  in  their  six-horse 
coaches,  filled  the  principal  houses  with 
the  gay  and  the  proud  of  the  tide-water 
region  —  stately  dame,  lovely  damsel, 
gallant  cavalier.  There  was  the  royal 
governor,  a  mimic  king ;  there  was  the 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  5 

governor's  mansion,  a  backwoods  palace  ; 
there  were  the  governor's  favourites, 
a  rustic  court.  Blinded  slightly  by 
such  a  glare,  Williamsburg  revelled  in 
her  splendour.  The  homes  of  the  rich 
were  thrown  open  to  entertainment, 
and  many  a  night  saw  the  ball-room 
blazing  with  light  and  the  "  dancers 
dancing  in  tune."  It  is  no  wonder  that 
Thomas  Jefferson,  a  warm-blooded  boy 
from  the  country,  should  feel  the  charm 
of  music,  youth,  loveliness,  and  mirth, 
should  find  his  lessons  grow  dull  as  the 
fiddles  grew  loud,  should  drop  his 
books,  join  the  merry-makers,  and  walk 
down  the  minuet  with  fair  ladies,  whose 
beauty  has  been  dust  these  hundred 
years  and  more. 

If  ever  in  his  youth  he  sowed  any 
wild  oats,  it  was  at  this  period  ;  but  even 
his  guardian  did  not  consider  the  crop 
large.  Jefferson,  however,  thought  he 
had  been  too  gay,  and  turned  a  new  leaf. 
Horses  and  social  enjoyments  were  dis- 


6  THOMAS   JEFFEBSON 

carded,  fifteen  hours  of  study  were 
crowded  iuto  each  day ;  and  for  ex 
ercise  there  was  at  dusk,  every  even 
ing,  a  brisk  run  of  a  mile  out  of  town 
and  back. 

Among  the  teachers  at  William  and 
Mary  was  Dr.  Small,  of  Edinburgh,  Scot 
land,  who  took  such  a  liking  to  Jeffer 
son  as  to  choose  him  for  a  companion. 
Dr.  Small,  a  bold,  profound  thinker, 
gave  to  Jefferson  new  ideas  and  larger 
conceptions,  quickening  his  love  of  learn 
ing  and  broadening  his  mental  view. 

The  governor  of  Virginia  at  this  time 
was  Fauquier,  a  scholar,  patron  of  learn 
ing,  free  thinker,  courtier,  man  of  the 
world,  gentleman  gambler,  "the  ablest 
man  who  had  ever  filled  that  office.'7 
Dr.  Small  introduced  Jefferson  to  the 
governor,  with  whom  the  student  be 
came  a  favourite.  Not  only  was  he  in 
vited  to  the  private  dinner  parties  at 
the  palace,  but  was  taken  into  the  band 
of  musical  amateurs  of  which  Fauquier 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  7 

was  a  member,  and  which  practised  con 
certs  once  a  week,  Jefferson  being  an 
excellent  performer  on  the  violin. 

Frequenting  a  palace  as  favoured  guest, 
dining  there  constantly  in  the  "  private 
parties  of  four,"  as  Jefferson  says  he  did, 
and  tweedle-deeing  with  the  governor 
regularly  once  a  week,  are  facts  which 
hardly  seem  consistent  with  the  fifteen 
hours  of  daily  study.  Were  it  not  that 
Mr.  Jefferson  himself  states  that  Dr. 
Small  made  one  of  the  party  of  four,  we 
should  incline  to  the  opinion  that  these 
doings  at  the  palace  occurred  while  Jef 
ferson  was  studying  law.  Dr.  Small, 
however,  returned  to  England  in  1762, 
the  year  of  Jefferson's  graduation. 
Therefore  we  must  conclude  that  Mr. 
Jefferson  often  suspended  the  fifteen- 
hour  rule  and  omitted  the  twilight  trot. 

It  was  at  this  colonial  court  that  Mr. 
Jefferson  formed  those  polished  manners 
which  distinguished  him  through  life. 
It  was  here  also,  perhaps,  that  he  ac- 


S  THOMAS  JEFFEBSON 

quired  a  taste  for  independent  thought, 
and  became  the  gently  inflexible  Deist 
whom  no  pulpit  thunder  could  ever 
shake. 

Completing  the  college  course  in  two 
years,  Mr.  Jefferson  was,  for  one  so  young, 
an  accomplished  scholar.  He  had  mas 
tered  Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics. 
Of  French  as  a  written  language  he 
had  a  thorough  knowledge.  In  the  best 
literature  of  ancient  and  modern  times 
he  was  well  read.  For  works  of  fiction 
he  had  no  taste ;  but  he  was  fond  of 
poetry,  and  raved  about  Ossian,  rank 
ing  him  above  all  the  moderns.  For 
Plato  and  his  abstractions  he  expressed 
unmitigated  scorn ;  for  metaphysics  he 
had  no  .use ;  and  he  derided  the  study 
of  ethics,  saying  that  morality  was  not 
a  matter  of  science.  He  argued  that  a 
ploughman  would  decide  a  moral  ques 
tion  as  well  as  a  professor,  because  the 
ploughman  "has  not  been  led  astray  by 
artificial  rules." 


THOMAS   JEFFEBSON  9 

College  days  over,  Mr.  Jefferson  took 
up  the  study  of  law  under  George 
Wythe,  one  of  the  purest  and  ablest  of 
Virginians.  For  five  years  these  studies 
went  on,  sometimes  at  Williamsburg, 
sometimes  at  Shadwell.  Coke  was  hard 
and  knotty,  but  he  was  sound  in  the 
doctrine  ;  and  Jefferson,  an  hereditary 
Whig,  came  to  love  him  as  much  as 
he  came  to  detest  Blackstone,  whose 
honeyed  Toryism  had  led  so  many 
lawyers  over  to  the  wrong  side.  When 
an  ambitious  young  man  gives  five  years 
to  the  reading  of  law  before  seeking 
admission  to  the  bar,  he  proves  very 
conclusively  that  he  means  to  be  thor 
ough.  By  nature  Mr.  Jefferson  was  a 
real  student,  one  who  loved  to  probe  to 
the  bottom.  For  half-way  knowledge 
he  had  a  contempt, — in  fact,  too  much 
contempt.  Whether  half-way  knowl 
edge  of  a  subject  be  valuable  must  al 
ways  depend  upon  which  half  one 
knows, — the  half  which  one  happens  to 


10  THOMAS  JEFFEBSON 
need  or  the  other.  The  scholar  in  the 
Eepublic  rarely  makes  sufficient  allow 
ance  for  that  natural  ability  which 
seizes,  here  and  there,  catch  as  catch 
can,  upon  such  bits  of  practical  knowl 
edge  as  it  must  have,  and  which  builds 
up  a  towering  success  while  the  scholar 
gapes  in  amazement,  and  vainly  tries  to 
understand  how  it  is  done.  Thus  Pat 
rick  Henry  studied  law  a  month,  and 
perplexed  our  five-year  student  by  his 
phenomenal  triumphs.  Henry  ( i  knew 
no  law, ' '  said  Jefferson ;  and  what 
Jefferson  said  most  lawyers  endorsed. 
Yet  Patrick  went  sturdily  forward,  win 
ning  more  big  cases,  pocketing  more  big 
fees,  and  saving  more  of  what  he  made 
than  any  of  the  wise  men  who  laughed 
at  his  ignorance. 

Preparing  himself  in  so  leisurely  a 
manner  for  the  practice  of  law,  Mr. 
Jefferson  had  time  and  inclination  for 
social  delights  again  ;  and  we  find  him 
among  the  revellers  at  Williamsburg 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  11 
during  the  winter  sessions.  The  lights 
in  the  Apollo  Boom  of  the  Ealeigh 
Tavern  flashed  upon  one  fair  lady 
whose  beauty  fascinated  the  gangling, 
raw-boned,  sandy-haired  law-student ; 
and  he  began  to  sigh,  and  to  make 
vows,  and  to  write  nonsense,  in  the 
good  old  way.  Her  name  was  Be- 
becca  Burwell.  Jefferson's  poetic  fancy 
being  stirred,  he  evolved  a  new  name 
for  this  loveliest  of  girls ;  and  he 
called  her  Belinda.  He  raved  about 
her,  but  there  was  much  prudence 
mingled  with  his  passion.  He  wished 
to  wed  Belinda  ;  and  he  also  wished  to 
go  abroad, — to  Europe  and  to  the  East. 
Apparently,  he  coupled  a  proposition 
to  marry  with  a  three-year  license  to 
travel.  Belinda  yearned  for  something 
more  tangible  than  this,  turned  a  willing 
ear  to  another  suitor  who  united  to  his 
claim  of  right  a  desire  for  immediate 
possession,  and  married  him,  thus  leav 
ing  the  prudent  Thomas  to  nurse  a  mild 
case  of  disappointed  love, 


12          THOMAS   JEFFEKSON 

During  the  Christmas  holidays  of 
1759-60,  while  at  Colonel  Nathan  Dand- 
ridge's,  Mr.  Jefferson  had  met  Patrick 
Henry.  The  two  became  friends. 
Henry  had  recently  made  a  failure  as 
merchant,  and,  leaving  others  to  bear 
the  grief,  was  enjoying  himself  with  the 
young  people.  He  was  full  of  life, 
danced  well,  told  a  good  joke,  played 
the  fiddle,  was  ready  for  romps  and 
games,  and  was  as  unconscious  of  the 
greatness  that  slept  within  him  as  were 
his  gay  companions.  Jefferson,  while  at 
Williamsburg,  saw  Patrick  often  $  and, 
when  Henry  made  his  famous  speech  on 
the  Stamp  Act  Eesolutions,  Jefferson 
was  standing  at  the  lobby  door,  a  rapt 
listener.  "  Torrents  of  sublime  elo 
quence  ' '  prevailed ;  and  Henry,  wrest 
ing  leadership  from  older,  wealthier, 
more  scholarly  men,  swung  the  colony 
into  a  declaration  of  defiance  to  Great 
Britain.  The  struggle  was  "most 
bloody, ''  the  last  resolution  going 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSOST  13 
through  on  a  majority  of  one.  "By 
God,  I  would  have  given  five  hun 
dred  guineas  for  a  single  vote  ! "  cried 
the  king's  attorney-general,  Peyton 
Bandolph,  as  he  brushed  by  Jefferson, 
and  entered  the  lobby.  One  vote  would 
have  made  a  tie  ;  and  the  speaker  of  the 
house  was  a  Boyalist,  who  would  have 
voted  against  the  resolution. 

In  1767  Mr.  Jefferson  was  admitted  to 
the  bar,  and  at  once  entered  upon  a  good 
practice.  Until  the  Bevolution  closed 
the  court,  his  legal  business  paid  him 
from  fifteen  hundred  to  three  thousand 
dollars  a  year.  Mr.  Jefferson  lacked 
qualities  necessary  to  success  as  a  court 
house  lawyer.  He  was  learned  in  the 
law,  laborious  in  the  preparation  of 
cases,  and  easily  master  of  all  the  issues 
involved  ;  but  he  was  no  wrangler,  had 
none  of  the  gifts  of  oratory,  and  no 
talent  for  impromptu  debate.  If  he 
spoke  much  above  a  conversational  tone, 
his  throat  failed  him  and  .his  voice  be- 


14  THOMAS  JEFFEESO^" 
came  husky.  In  a  smooth,  easy-going 
case,  where  the  law  controlled  or  a  few 
great  facts  dictated  the  result,  Jeffer 
son  must  have  been  superb  ;  but  in  a 
hot  fight  all  along  the  line,  the  law  in 
a  fog,  the  facts  in  a  mist  of  lies,  and  the 
issues  hanging  on  the  verdict  of  an  ex 
cited  jury,  he  must  have  been  at  sad 
disadvantage.  Before  the  Virginia 
courts  of  those  days,  profundity  of 
learning  iwas  not  strictly  necessary. 
Knowledge  of  human  nature,  the  art  to 
play  upon  local  prejudices,  the  gift  of 
passionate  pleading,  agility  to  light  on 
one's  feet  in  rough-and-tumble  court 
room  battles,  outweighed  whole  libraries 
of  legal  lore. 


II. 

ME.  JEFFERSON  had  a  rare  talent  for 
pleasing,  and  he  was  popular  with  the 
young  and  the  old.  His  habits  were 
studious,  and  continued  so  all  his  life; 
but  he  was  companionable,  sympathetic, 
and  loved  a  friend  even  better  than  a 
book.  He  did  not  use  tobacco,  get 
drunk,  swear,  or  play  cards ;  but  he 
loved  music,  the  dance,  the  horse-race, 
the  fox-hunt,  and  the  healthy  sport  of 
the  young.  He  had  been  a  good  son, 
a  good  brother,  a  good  boy  at  school, 
making  no  enemies,  and  winning  favour 
even  among  those  who  had  not  loved 
his  father.  His  manners  were  quiet  and 
agreeable,  his  conversation  tactful,  in 
telligent,  suited  to  the  company  and  the 
occasion.  He  did  not  pose  as  a  censor, 
did  not  go  around  setting  everybody  to 
rights  on  everything.  Pet  prejudices  he 
left  undisturbed  ;  hobby -riders  he  made 
no  effort  to  unhorse.  When  private,  so- 


16          THOMAS   JEFFEESON 

cial  talk  could  no  longer  be  made  a  source 
of  pleasure,  he  withdrew  into  silence.  A 
scholar,  he  was  neither  prig  nor  pedant, 
bookworm  nor  visionary;  and  he  charmed 
men  because  he  could  listen  as  well  as 
talk,  learn  as  well  as  teach,  help  as  well 
as  give  advice,  was  easy  of  approach  and 
put  on  no  airs  of  superiority. 

In  person  he  was  six  feet  two  and 
a  half  inches  tall,  spare- made,  active, 
strong,  and  of  robust  health.  He  had 
big  feet,  hands,  and  wrists  ;  a  long  neck, 
a  small  pointed  nose,  perfect  teeth,  and 
hair  which  was  light  auburn  or  sandy. 
His  hazel -grey  eyes  were  neither  large 
nor  brilliant,  but  were  clear  and  expres 
sive.  His  complexion  was  reddish,  the 
skin  of  the  face  quick  to  peel  under  ex 
posure  to  sun  or  wind.  His  face  was 
angular,  rather  ugly  in  youth  ;  but  it  be 
came  fuller  with  advancing  years,  and 
his  looks  improved  as  he  grew  older. 

On  coming  of  age,  Mr.  Jefferson  was 
made  Vestryman  in  the  church  and  jus- 


THOMAS  JEFFEKSON  17 
tice  of  the  peace.  He  put  on  foot  a  sub 
scription  to  clear  obstructions  from  the 
Bivanna,  raised,  the  money,  got  legisla 
tive  sanction,  and  opened  the  little 
stream  to  local  navigation.  He  con 
tinued  to  live  quietly  at  Shadwell,  pur 
suing  his  studies,  busy  with  his  farms 
and  law  cases,  until  1769,  when  a  new 
election  of  burgesses  was  ordered.  Be 
coming  a  candidate  for  Albemarle 
County,  he  complied,  with  the  custom, 
canvassed  the  voters  in  person,  attended 
at  the  polls,  dealt  out  lunch  and  punch 
to  hungry  and  thirsty  electors,  made  his 
bow  as  often  as  his  name  was  voted  for, 
and  was  elected 

So  it  was  that  Thomas  Jefferson  was 
one  of  the  burgesses  who  listened  to 
the  address  with  which  Lord  Botetourt, 
newly  appointed  Governor  of  Virginia, 
opened  the  House  in  May,  1769. 

The  Stamp  Act  against  which  Patrick 
Henry  had  thundered  had  been  repealed, 
but  the  repeal  had  been  coupled  with 


18  THOMAS  JEFFEKSON 
the  declaration  of  Great  Britain's  right 
to  bind  the  colonies  in  all  cases  whatso 
ever.  Changing  her  tactics  without 
swerving  from  her  purpose,  England  in 
1767  adopted  the  stealthier  and  dead 
lier  policy  of  indirect  taxation, —  duties 
on  imported  goods,  such  as  glass,  tea, 
and  paper.  The  machinery  of  coercion 
was  put  in  motion,  troops  were  landed 
in  Boston,  colonial  governors  instructed 
to  dismiss  rebellious  assemblies,  and 
agitators  were  to  be  sent  to  England  for 
trial. 

The  temper  with  which  these  meas 
ures  were  met  can  readily  be  imagined. 
The  colonies  had  long  enjoyed  prac 
tical  home  rule.  Their  situation  had 
made  self-reliance,  self-defence,  and 
.  self-government  absolutely  necessary  to 
their  existence.  Not  a  colony  had  been 
planted  at  the  expense  of  the  English 
crown.  Not  a  colony  would  have  out- 
lived  the  storm  and  stress  of  early 
struggles?  had  they  waited  Great  Brit- 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  19 
ain's  help.  The  French  wars,  which 
were  the  excuse  for  England's  attempt 
to  tax  the  colonies,  were  England' s  own 
wars,  a  part  of  her  world- wide  contest 
with  her  national  enemy.  France  had 
no  quarrel  with  the  colonies,  the  colonies 
none  with  France.  Great  Britain  and 
her  chartered  company,  the  Ohio  Land 
Company,  brought  on  the  war,  of  which 
England  reaped  the  benefits,  while  the 
colonies  bore  the  brunt. 

Without  any  new  taxes  the  colonies 
were  already  making  immense  contribu 
tions  to  the  wealth  of  England.  Ameri 
can  manufactures  were  suppressed  by 
law,  in  order  that  English  wares  should 
enjoy  a  monopoly.  The  navigation 
acts  forced  American  trade  into  English 
markets.  Of  the  profits  of  all  this  com 
merce,  Great  Britain  reaped  the  lion's 
share.  For  example,  when  a  shipload 
of  tobacco  left  Virginia  for  London,  a 
greedy  swarm  of  duties,  charges,  com 
mercial  stealages,  followed  it  from  the 


20  THOMAS  JEFFEKSON 
planter's  wharf  to  the  factor's  ware 
house,  and  literally  devoured  it.  Some 
times  the  cargo  was  not  enough  to  feed 
the  vultures  which  lit  upon  it,  and  the 
planter  had  to  pay  a  bill  after  losing  his 
tobacco.  Smarting  under  such  treat 
ment,  Virginians  were  in  no  frame  of 
mind  to  listen  with  patience  while  Eng 
land  proposed  new  taxes. 

To  have  their  nominal  rulers  ap 
pointed  and  their  foreign  commerce 
controlled  by  the  crown  was  one  thing  : 
to  submit  to  the  principle  that  they 
could  be  arbitrarily  taxed  by  a  Parlia 
ment  in  which  they  had  neither  voice 
nor  vote  was  another.  The  first  legisla 
tive  body  of  white  men  ever  assembled 
on  this  continent,  the  Virginia  Assem 
bly  of  1619,  had  asserted  the  right  of 
local  self-government.  The  colonies, 
grown  strong  and  self-confident,  were 
determined  to  keep  what  their  ancestors 
had  claimed. 

As  a  courtesy  to  so  distinguished  a 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON         21 

young  member,  the  burgesses  requested 
Mr.  Jefferson  to  draft  the  resolutions 
which  were  to  be  the  basis  of  their  for 
mal  reply  to  the  governor's  address. 
He  did  so,  and  his  work  was  approved. 
He  was  then  named  on  the  committee 
which  was  appointed  to  draw  up  the 
formal  reply,  and  the  committee  nat 
urally  asked  him  to  write  it  out.  He 
did  so,  and  his  work  was  promptly  re 
jected.  It  was  too  brief.  It  stuck  too 
closely  to  the  bare  outline  of  the  reso 
lutions.  Mr.  Jefferson,  young  and 
sensitive,  was  deeply  mortified  j  and, 
brevity  being  the  disease,  the  cure  was 
complete  and  permanent.  So  far  as  I 
can  discover,  none  of  his  subsequent 
writings  suffer  from  being  too  short. 
The  burgesses  passed  resolutions  de 
claring  that  taxation  without  represen 
tation  was  illegal,  and  that  the  sending 
of  accused  persons  out  of  the  country 
for  trial  was  u  inexpressible  complexity 
of  wrong.'7 


22          THOMAS  JEFFEBSON 

Governor  Botetourt  dissolved  the 
House  ;  and  the  members,  holding  a  meet 
ing  in  the  Apollo  Boom  of  the  Ealeigh 
Tavern,  resolved  to  buy  no  more  English 
goods  which  it  was  possible  to  dispense 
with,  and  to  recommend  this  policy  to 
their  constituents.  Eighty-eight  mem 
bers  —  including  George  Washington, 
Patrick  Henry,  George  Mason,  B.  H. 
Lee,  and  Thomas  Jefferson  —  signed  the 
compact.  Virginia  ratified  the  agree 
ment,  and  those  members  who  had  refused 
to  sign  were  not  re-elected  to  the  House. 
The  British  government  enforced  the 
tax  laws,  collected  some  eighty  thousand 
dollars,  spent  as  large  a  sum  in  doing  it, 
and  once  more  decided  to  retrace  their 
steps.  Lord  Botetourt  joyfully  recon 
vened  the  legislature  of  Virginia  to  an 
nounce  the  good  news.  Tea  was  not 
mentioned  in  the  list  of  the  articles  from 
which  the  duties  were  to  be  removed, 
and  neither  the  governor  nor  the  House 
seemed  to  note  the  omission. 


THOMAS  JEFFEESON          23 

In  March,  1770,  Parliament  repealed 
the  tax  act  of  1767,  except  as  to  tea. 
Total  repeal  was  not  to  be  thought  of 
"till  America  is  prostrate  at  our  feet.'7 

In  the  second  session  of  the  Assembly, 
Mr.  Jefferson  attempted  the  work  of  a 
reformer,  and  met  with  a  decided  re 
pulse.  The  eloquent  talk  about  liberty, 
natural  rights,  and  so  forth,  had  led  the 
young  statesman  to  think  that  the  op 
portunity  was  favourable  for  a  plea  in 
behalf  of  the  negro.  Under  the  Vir 
ginia  law,  no  slave-owner  could  free  his 
negroes  without  sending  them  out  of 
the  state.  Mr.  Jefferson  wished  to  re 
peal  this  law.  Following  the  habit 
which  had  marked  him  at  school,  and 
which  he  never  discarded,  he  put  for 
ward  another  man  to  test  the  ice.  The 
victim  chosen  for  this  particular  sacri 
fice  was  Colonel  Eichard  Bland,  and  he 
readily  agreed  to  offer  the  bill  which 
Jefferson  had  drawn.  The  colonel  was 
a  guileless  philosopher,  "one  of  the 


24  THOMAS  JEFFEESOK 
oldest,  ablest,  and  most  respected  mem 
bers  of  the  House ' '  ;  but  his  grey  hairs 
did  not  shield  him  from,  the  storm.  The 
slave- owners  fell  upon  him  in  bitter 
wrath,  rived  him  with  oratorical  bolts, 
riddled  him  with  abuse,  treated  him  with 
the  greatest  personal  indignity,  and 
damned  his  bill  with  virtuous  unanim 
ity.  Jefferson,  as  seconder  of  the  reso 
lution,  caught  just  enough  of  the  punish 
ment  to  reconcile  him  thoroughly  to  his 
position  in  the  rear. 

The  right  for  which  Mr.  Jefferson 
here  contended  was  given  to  slave- own 
ers  in  Virginia  in  1782. 


III. 

EEYOLUTION  was  slowly  collecting  its 
forces,  and  no  man  watched  its  move 
ment  with  keener  interest  than  Thomas 
Jefferson  ;  yet  the  years  which  preceded 
it  were  the  happiest  of  his  life.  In  all 
the  vigour  of  early,  robust  manhood  j 
popular,  well  connected  and  accom 
plished  5  sanguine,  sunny-tempered,  and 
fond  of  congenial  work  j  harassed  by  no 
disadvantages  of  fortune  or  of  environ 
ment,  he  must  have  regarded  the  fut 
ure  as  radiant  with  promise.  The  even 
current  of  his  days  ran  smoothly  on. 
With  his  fees  he  bought  books  and 
bought  land.  He  pursued  his  studies 
and  pushed  his  business.  He  kept  up  his 
walks  and  rides,  and  he  gave  part  of 
every  day  to  his  fiddle.  He  dearly 
loved  his  sister  Jane,  he  dearly  loved 
young  Dabney  Carr,  and  these  were  his 
chosen  companions.  Never  idle,  he  was 
never  hurried.  Each  day  found  him  at 


26          THOMAS   JEFFEKSOK 
work,  each  day  he  took  recreation.     A 
favourite  stroll  was  to  the  hill  he  called 
Monticello,    a    part    of    the     Shadwell 
tract. 

On  one  of  the  slopes  of  this  hill  he 
had  made  a  rustic  seat,  under  a  majestic 
oak  ;  and  to  this  spot  came  the  friends 
Jefferson  and  Carr,  bringing  their  books 
to  read,  to  study,  to  dream  dreams.  One 
of  these  visions  was  of  an  ideal  home 
which  should  crown  the  hill,  an  ideal 
cemetery  laid  out  on  the  slope,  and  of 
two  friends  sleeping  side  by  side  under 
the  wide-spreading  branches  of  their  fa 
vourite  oak.  And  the  dream  came  true. 
The  ideal  home  did  crown  the  hill.  The 
cemetery,  too,  came  soon  enough ;  and 
under  their  favourite  oak  the  two  friends 
did  at  length  sleep  side  by  side. 

Shadwell  was  accidentally  burned  in 
1770,  while  Jefferson  and  his  mother 
were  away.  The  house  and  nearly  all  it 
contained  were  destroyed.  "Did  you 
save  none  of  my  books  !  ' '  asked  Jeffer- 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSOX  27 
son  of  the  negro  who  brought  the  news. 
"No,  boss;  but  we  saved  the  fiddle." 
Eemoving  his  mother  and  the  rest  of 
the  family  to  another  house  on  the  place, 
Mr.  Jefferson  went  to  live  at  Monticello, 
where  he  already  had  one  room  fit  for 
use. 

On  January  1,  1772,  he  was  married 
to  Martha  Skelton,  a  childless  young 
widow,  daughter  of  John  Wayles,  who 
was  a  wealthy  lawyer  of  the  Williams- 
burg  bar.  It  is  said  that  the  lady  had 
two  other  suitors  besides  Mr.  Jefferson ; 
and  that  these  two  did  not  quit  the  field 
until,  on  coming  to  make  her  a  visit  one 
day,  they  found  the  young  widow  and 
the  young  lawyer  together,  she  playing 
the  spinet  and  he  the  fiddle,  and  both 
mingling  their  voices  in  melodious 
measure,  pouring  out  their  souls  in  song, 
oblivious  to  all  surroundings.  Even  to 
the  eyes  of  rivalry,  this  looked  like  a 
plain  case ;  and  the  two  belated  suitors 
were  so  overcome  that  they  silently  stole 


28          THOMAS  JEFFEBSON 

away  without  having  had  the  heart  to 

mar  so  sweet  a  scene. 

The  young  couple  at  once  went  to 
live  at  Monticello,  where  only  one  of 
the  brick  "  pavilions "  was  complete. 
Faster  than  ever  now  sped  the  work  of 
making  the  ideal  home.  Jefferson  was 
landscape  gardener,  architect,  and  mas 
ter-builder.  Every  plan,  every  detail, 
was  his.  Most  of  the  materials — brick, 
nails,  timbers,  etc. —  were  made  on  the 
place.  The  workmen  were  his  slaves, 
trained  by  him  to  their  task.  Passion 
ately  fond  of  such  work  as  this,  he 
was  almost  equally  in  love  with  his 
grounds,  gardens,  orchards,  and  farms. 
He  experimented  with  all  sorts  of  seeds, 
testing  numberless  varieties  of  nuts, 
roots,  melons,  vines,  grains,  and  trees. 
In  all  directions  he  went  in  quest  of 
useful  knowledge  ;  and,  when  found,  he 
made  a  note  of  it  in  a  book.  Fondness 
for  details  became  a  passion  with  him, 
and  his  records  included  the  smallest  as 
well  as  the  greatest. 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON          29 

In  his  own  right,  Mr.  Jefferson  owned, 
at  the  time  of  his  marriage,  five  thou 
sand  acres  of  land  and  fifty-two  slaves. 
His  farms  yielded  him  a  yearly  income 
of  about  two  thousand  dollars.  By  the 
death  of  his  wife's  father,  the  year 
after  the  marriage,  he  acquired  forty 
thousand  acres  of  land  and  one  hundred 
and  thirty-five  slaves,  encumbered  by  a 
British  debt  of  about  nineteen  thousand 
dollars.  On  a  portion  of  this  land  was 
situated  the  Natural  Bridge ;  and  it 
became  one  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  fancies  to 
build  him  a  hut  there,  and  to  live  that 
life  of  contented  obscurity  which  is  the 
favourite  illusion  of  the  man  who  loves 
books,  quiet,  and  solitude. 

Considering  himself  a  rich  man,  Mr. 
Jefferson  adopted  a  style  of  living  which 
none  but  the  rich  could  afford.  He 
kept  open  house.  He  sported  the  finest 
horses.  Many  servants  ministered  to  the 
wants  of  himself,  his  family,  or  his 
guests.  Busy  hands  reared  the  mansion, 


30  THOMAS  JEFFEBSON 
levelled  the  lawn,  laid  out  terrace  and 
garden,  planted  shrubbery  and  orchard. 
Monticello  grew  in  beauty  year  by  year. 
Visitors  came,  visitors  went,  and  the 
young  couple  were  happy  ;  for,  to  crown 
it  all,  children  came.  Thus  a  part  of 
Mr.  Jefferson' s  dream  had  come  true ; 
and  he  had,  upon  his  mountain  top,  as 
perfect  a  home  as  life  ever  filled  or 
death  emptied. 


IV. 

IN  1770  the  Boston  massacre  occurred  ; 
in  1772  the  Gaspee  affair.  The  barning 
of  the  Gaspee  inflamed  Great  Britain 
as  much  as  the  Boston  massacre  had 
maddened  the  Americans.  Eoyal  proc 
lamations  were  issued,  rewards  were 
offered,  a  commission  was  sent  to  investi 
gate,  and  General  Gage  ordered  to  en 
force  the  findings.  Owing  to  circum 
stances,  the  commission  could  reach  no 
findings  for  Gage  to  enforce.  Provi 
dence  knew  nothing.  No  witness  would 
testify.  Eoyal  wrath  found  itself  baffled 
by  the  impenetrable  mystery  which  had 
settled  upon  the  whole  transaction. 

Great  Britain  enacted  a  drastic  law  to 
protect  her  ships,  and  declared  the  inten 
tion  of  sending  to  England  for  trial  per 
sons  suspected  of  the  crime  which  had 
been  committed.  Therefore,  when  the 
Virginia  burgesses  met  early  in  1773, 
feeling  against  the  mother  country  had 
not  softened. 


32          THOMAS   JEFFEBSOST 

Some  of  the  younger  members  —  the 
Lees,  Henry,  Jefferson,  and  Dabney  Carr 
—  became  restless  under  the  timid  leader 
ship  of  the  older  men,  and  began  to  meet 
in  private  for  consultation.  At  one  of 
these  meetings,  Eichard  Henry  Lee  pro 
posed  the  creation  of  a  Committee  of  Cor 
respondence,  which  organised  the  Kevo- 
lution.  Jefferson  put  the  plan  into 
writing.  Dabney  Car  offered  it  to  the 
House  (March  12,  1773).  The  resolu 
tion  was  adopted,  and  the  committee 
appointed.  Governor  Dunmore  dis 
solved  the  burgesses,  but  the  committee 
at  once  entered  upon  its  work.  Of  this 
committee  Mr.  Jefferson  was  a  member. 
In  December,  1773,  came  the  Boston 
1 '  Tea  party. ' '  In  retaliation,  Parliament 
closed  the  port  of  Boston,  in  part  annulled 
the  charter  of  Massachusetts,  provided 
that  British  troops  should  be  quartered 
on  the  people,  appointed  General  Gage 
military  governor  of  the  colony,  and 
declared  that  the  entire  region  between 


THOMAS   JEFFEESON          33 

the  Ohio,  the  Mississippi,  and  the  Great 
Lakes  belonged  to  Canada. 

While  the  Virginia  House  of  Burgesses 
was  still  in  session,  May,  1774,  messengers 
sent  by  the  Committee  of  Correspondence 
of  Massachusetts  came  riding  into  Will- 
iamsburg,  bearing  the  doleful  tidings  from 
the  north.  The  younger  members  who 
had  led  the  House  in  1773  were  leading 
it  again  in  1774,  save  Dabney  Carr,  who 
was  dead.  They  met  in  the  council 
chamber  for  private  conference,  and  de 
cided  that  Virginia  must  stand  by  Mas 
sachusetts,  the  cause  of  one  being  the 
cause  of  all.  But,  first,  Virginia  must 
be  roused. 

There  were  no  telegraphs,  no  daily 
newspapers,  no  railroads  to  reach  the 
people.  To  get  them  in  motion  was  dif 
ficult.  These  young  leaders  decided 
that  the  best  they  could  do  would  be  to 
have  a  day  of  fasting,  prayer,  and  preach 
ing.  Jefferson,  who  had  no  faith  in  such 
things  himself,  knew  the  value  of  them 


34  THOMAS  JEFFEKSON 
as  political  agencies.  He  says  that  he 
and  his  friends  " cooked  up"  a  resolu 
tion  which  met  the  requirements,  and  that 
they  prevailed  upon  a  good,  pious  old 
gentleman,  Nicholas,  to  offer  it  in  the 
House.  It  was  adopted,  June  1  being 
fixed  for  the  day  on  which  the  people 
should  fast,  humiliate  themselves,  and 
pray !  Patriots  were  ' i  to  implore  Heaven 
to  avert  from  us  the  evils  of  civil  war, 
to  inspire  us  with  firmness  in  support  of 
our  rights,  and  to  turn  the  hearts  of  the 
king  and  Parliament  to  moderation  and 
justice.'7 

Governor  Dunmore  appears  to  have  had 
grave  doubts  as  to  the  genuineness  of  the 
religious  spirit  which  moved  the  mem 
bers  who  had  "  cooked  up  "  these  resolu 
tions.  To  have  his  royal  master  pub 
licly  prayed  for  as  a  tyrant  whose  heart 
needed  to  be  turned  to  moderation  and 
justice  was  a  proceeding  which  smelt 
violently  of  treason.  In  the  depths  of 
his  soul  the  governor  may  have  felt  that 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  35 
all  this  fasting  and  praying  was  being 
done  for  political  effect,  and  to  spread 
the  very  danger  which  the  prayers  were 
imploring  Heaven  to  avert.  Anyhow, 
he  dissolved  the  House.  The  members 
went  as  usual  to  the  Apollo  Boom  of  the 
Ealeigh  Tavern,  where  they  decided,  to 
use  no  more  tea,  and  to  instruct  the  Com 
mittee  of  Correspondence  to  propose  an 
annual  congress  of  deputies  from  all  the 
colonies  (May,  1774). 

June  1  came,  and  it  was  a  great  day 
in  Virginia.  The  preachers  and  the 
politicians  had  so  bestirred  themselves 
that  the  people  were  aroused  as  by  an 
electric  shock.  So  rigidly  did  patriots 
fast,  so  deeply  were  they  humiliated,  so 
violently  were  preached  at  and  prayed 
for,  that  by  the  time  the  ceremonies 
were  ended  everybody  was  ready  to 
fight. 

In  August,  1774,  Virginia  held  her 
convention  to  elect  delegates  to  the  Con 
tinental  Congress.  Mr.  Jefferson,  being 


36  THOMAS  JEFFEBSO^ 
chosen  a  member  of  the  convention,  pre 
pared  an  elaborate  statement  of  the 
colonial  cause  against  Great  Britain, 
and  proposed  that  this  paper  should  be 
used  as  a  basis  of  instructions  to  be 
given  to  Virginia  delegates  in  Con 
gress.  Falling  sick  on  the  way,  Mr. 
Jefferson  did  not  attend  the  convention, 
but  forwarded  his  paper.  It  was  not 
adopted  by  the  convention ;  but  it  at 
tracted  notice,  was  published  here  and 
in  England,  and  added  greatly  to  the 
author's  fame. 

The  extreme  views  of  Mr.  Jefferson, 
as  set  forth  in  the  document  mentioned, 
led  to  his  name  being  inserted  in  a  list 
of  rebels  whom  the  British  ministry 
proposed  to  attaint  for  treason. 

The  convention  of  August,  1774,  re 
newed  their  pledges  to  cut  off  trade 
with  England.  The  tobacco  crop  of 
1774  might  be  sold  ;  but,  unless  the  heart 
of  King  George  turned  to  moderation 
and  justice  by  August  10,  1775,  not  a 


THOMAS  JEFFEKSON  37 
pound  of  Virginia  tobacco  should  Great 
Britain  ever  have  again.  As  to  tea,  it 
was  not  to  be  tolerated  a  moment : 
"We  view  it  with  horror. "  General 
Gage,  who  had  been  made  to  get  out  of 
Boston,  was  denounced  as  "a  despotic 
viceroy.'7  They  declared  that  their 
own  intentions  were  pacific,  that  they 
had  not  the  most  remote  idea  of  disturb 
ing  the  peace,  but  that,  if  General  Gage 
should  presume  to  obey  the  orders  sent 
him  from  England,  such  conduct  on  his 
part  would  " justify  resistance  and  re 
prisal." 

Taken  altogether,  these  measures  bore 
a  decided  resemblance  to  a  declaration 
of  war.  The  leaders  must  have  so  un 
derstood  it,  whether  the  people  did  or 
not.  George  Washington  had  already 
declared  in  his  county  meeting  that  he 
was  ready  to  raise  and  equip  at  his  own 
expense  a  thousand  men  to  march  to  the 
relief  of  Boston. 

Virginia  named  her  delegates  to  the 


38  THOMAS  JEFFEESON 
Congress  —  Washington,  Henry,  Harri 
son,  Bland,  Lee,  Peyton  Randolph, 
and  Pendleton.  Eandolph  being  the 
speaker  of  the  burgesses,  it  was  decided 
that,  if  he  should  have  to  return  to  pre 
side  over  that  body,  Mr.  Jefferson 
should  take  his  place  in  Congress.  The 
convention  adjourned  over  to  March  20, 
1775,  to  meet  at  Eichmond. 

Committees  of  Safety  were  elected  by 
the  counties  of  the  state  to  further  the 
work  of  revolution,  and  Mr.  Jefferson 
was  elected  on  the  committee  for  Albe- 
marle.  When  the  convention  reassem 
bled  in  March,  1775,  Patrick  Henry 
made  his  famous  speech,  of  which  the 
passionate  burden  was,  "We  must 
fight !  "  A  committee  of  thirteen,  which 
included  George  Washington,  Patrick 
Henry,  E.  H.  Lee,  and  Thomas  Jeffer 
son,  was  appointed  to  prepare  Virginia 
for  war. 

Governor  Dunmore  thought  that  it 
was  now  high  time  for  him  to  be  up  and 


THOMAS  JEFFEESON  39 
doing.  There  was  a  powder  magazine 
in  the  public  square  at  Williamsburg  — 
a  very  tempting  amount  of  powder  at  a 
very  tempting  place ;  and  Dunmore 
probably  dreaded  the  influence  of  such 
a  temptation  upon  the  heated  colonial 
mind.  At  any  rate,  he  sent  a  midnight 
party  of  marines  to  the  magazine,  and 
had  the  powder  carted  off  to  a  British 
man-of-war  which  lay  in  James  Eiver. 
This  act  of  Dunmore' s  came  near  caus 
ing  a  riot,  the  utmost  influence  of  Pey 
ton  Eandolph  and  others  being  neces 
sary  to  keep  the  people  quiet.  One 
man,  however,  could  not  be  pacified. 
Patrick  Henry  called  out  the  militia  of 
Hanover,  harangued  them  in  his  hottest 
style,  and  marched  them  upon  Will 
iamsburg.  On  the  way  other  troops 
joined  them,  until  Patrick's  force  was 
numbered  by  thousands,  all  armed,  all 
angry,  and  all  deeply  imbued  with  the 
gospel  of  ' i  We  must  fight ! ' '  Dunmore, 
unprepared  for  such  an  emergency, 


40          THOMAS   JEFFEKSON 
made  terms.     He  agreed  to  pay  for  the 
powder,    did    pay    at    once ;    and    the 
rebels  dispersed,  leaving  Patrick  Henry 
the  hero  of  Virginia. 

At  this  stage  came  Lord  North's  con 
ciliatory  proposition  to  the  colonies,  and 
Dunmore  called  the  burgesses  together 
to  consider  it.  Peyton  Eandolph  re 
turned  from  the  Congress  at  Philadel 
phia,  and  asked  Jefferson  to  remain  in 
the  House  of  Burgesses  to  draft  the 
reply  of  Virginia  to  the  mother  coun 
try.  The  conciliatory  proposition  was 
this  :  the  British  ministry  was  to  name 
the  amount  of  the  taxes  the  colonies 
should  pay,  and  then  the  colonies  were 
to  raise  the  money  by  any  method  they 
chose.  Jefferson's  reply  took  the 
ground  that  North's  plan  only  changed 
the  form  of  the  burden,  and  that  it  left 
the  colonial  grievances  unredressed. 

The  first  Continental  Congress,  which 
met  in  Philadelphia  September  5,  1774, 
moved  slowly  and  cautiously.  It  issued 


THOMAS  JEFFEKSON  41 
declarations  of  rights  and  grievances, 
renewed  the  boycott  on  English  goods, 
denied  Great  Britain's  right  to  tax  the 
colonists  or  to  quarter  troops  upon  them 
without  their  consent  ;  but  all  this  was 
done  by  men  professing  themselves  to  be 
loyal  and  loving  subjects  of  the  king. 
No  hint  of  independence  was  heard. 

At  the  January  session,  1775,  the 
British  Parliament  declared  Massachu 
setts  to  be  in  a  state  of  rebellion.  The 
disobedient  colonies  were  forbidden  to 
fish  in  Newfoundland  waters  or  to  trade 
with  England,  Ireland,  or  the  West 
Indies. 

In  April,  1775,  came  the  tragedy  at 
Lexington,  and  the  running  fight  which 
the  infuriated  militia  made  upon  the 
British  as  they  retreated  to  Boston,  after 
the  destruction  of  the  rebel  stores.  The 
militia,  after  driving  the  English  back 
to  the  city,  besieged  them  there ;  and 
thus  the  king's  loyal  and  loving  Con 
gress  came  face  to  face  with  a  crisis  for 


42          THOMAS   JEFFEESOK 
which  they  were,   perhaps,   quite  pre 
pared. 

Lord  North's  conciliatory  proposition 
rejected,  Massachusetts  officially  advised 
to  govern  herself,  another  day  of  fasting 
and  prayer  was  observed ;  and  then,  June 
14,  Congress  resolved  that  an  army 
should  be  raised.  Next  day,  on  motion 
of  John  Adams,  George  Washington 
was  made  commander- in- chief.  Two 
days  later  came  the  battle  of  Bunker 
Hill.  "Did  the  militia  fight ?"  asked 
Washington  on  his  way  to  the  army. 
Told  that  it  did,  he  exclaimed,  "Then 
the  liberties  of  the  country  are  safe"; 
and  the  great  man  rode  on  to  shoulder 
his  heavy  task. 

Jefferson  took  his  seat  in  Congress 
June  21,  1775,  bringing  with  him  aa 
reputation  for  literature,  science,  and  a 
happy  talent  for  composition. ' '  Though 
a  silent  member  of  Congress,  he  was  so 
prompt,  frank,  explicit,  and  decisive 
upon  committees  and  in  conversation 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  43 
that  lie  soon  won  the  heart  of  John 
Adams,  and  made  a  most  favourable  im 
pression  upon  the  whole  assemblage. 
Congress  had  appointed  a  committee  to 
draw  up  a  statement  of  the  causes  which 
had  led  America  to  arms,  and  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  was  added  to  the  committee.  He 
was  asked  to  prepare  the  paper,  and  did 
so ;  but  Mr.  Dickinson,  of  the  commit 
tee,  objected  that  Jefferson's  draft  was 
too  strong.  Dickinson  wrote  a  substi 
tute,  which  was  adopted.  In  his  memoir 
Mr.  Jefferson  states  that  the  last  four 
paragraphs  of  Dickinson's  paper  (and 
half  of  another  paragraph)  were  copied 
from  that  drawn  by  himself.  A  few 
weeks  later  he  was  chosen  by  ballot  a 
member  of  the  committee  to  answer 
Lord  North's  conciliatory  proposition. 
The  committee  assigned  the  task  to  Mr. 
Jefferson,  and  his  draft  was  adopted. 

Congress  adjourned  August  1.  Mr. 
Jefferson  returned  to  the  Virginia  con 
vention,  and  was  elected  by  that  body  to 


44  THOMAS  JEFFEBSON 
the  next  Congress.  After  a  few  days  he 
secured  leave  of  absence,  and  returned  to 
Monticello.  Mr.  Jefferson  did  not  re 
sume  his  work  in  Congress  until  Septem 
ber  25.  He  was  back  in  Virginia  in 
December.  The  Americans  had  learned 
that  Great  Britain  meant  to  coerce  them, 
that  their  petition  had  been  rejected, 
and  that  preparations  were  making  to 
put  down  the  rebellion.  The  colonies 
had  grown  too  strong  to  take  orders  from 
abroad,  and  the  whole  country  now  was 
seething  with  excitement.  "We  must 
fight,"  became  the  creed,  arming  and 
drilling  the  practice.  For  several 
months  Mr.  Jefferson  was  busy  in  Vir 
ginia  raising  supplies  for  Boston,  collect 
ing  money  to  buy  powder,  and  paving 
the  way  for  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence. 

Dunmore's  flight  having  left  the 
colony  without  an  executive,  the  con 
vention  of  July,  1775,  had  named  a 
"  Committee  of  Safety  "  to  rule  Virginia 


THOMAS  JEFFEKSON         45 

with  almost  dictatorial  powers.  Patrick 
Henry  was  made  commander- in- chief  of 
the  state  forces.  Dunmore,  from  his 
headquarters  at  Norfolk,  proclaimed 
martial  law,  offered  freedom  to  the 
negroes  who  would  enlist  with  him,  and 
ravaged  the  shores  of  the  Chesapeake. 
In  December,  1775,  the  Committee  of 
Safety  sent  Colonel  William  Woodford 
and  a  small  force  toward  Norfolk  ;  and 
there  was  a  fight  at  Great  Bridge. 
Captain  Fordyce,  at  the  head  of  about 
sixty  British  grenadiers,  attacked  the 
Virginians.  He  was  defeated,  and 
killed.  Dunmore,  in  his  rage,  burnt 
Norfolk.  In  May  the  Virginia  conven 
tion  met,  and  it  soon  appeared  that  Jef 
ferson's  visit  had  borne  fruit.  A  resolu 
tion,  written  by  Edmund  Pendleton  and 
presented  by  Thomas  Nelson,  was  unani 
mously  adopted,  instructing  the  Vir 
ginia  delegates  in  Congress  to  propose  to 
that  body  to  * l  declare  the  United  Colo 
nies  free  and  independent  States."  The 


46  THOMAS  JEFFEESON 
convention  then  adopted  a  Declaration 
of  Eights  and  a  Constitution,  both  writ 
ten  by  George  Mason.  Thus  on  June 
29,  1776,  Virginia  declared  herself  an 
independent  State.  Patrick  Henry  was 
elected  governor  by  this  same  conven 
tion,  and  the  new  government  went  into 
effect  at  once. 

On  June  7,  1776,  Eichard  Henry  Lee 
made  in  Congress  the  motion  that  the 
colonies  declare  themselves  "free  and 
independent  States."  John  Adams  sec 
onded  the  motion,  and  was  "the  colossus 
of  that  debate."  The  committee  to 
draw  up  the  declaration  was  chosen  by 
ballot.  Jefferson  stood  at  the  head, 
John  Adams  being  second  ;  and,  after 
some  courteous  sparring  as  to  which 
should  do  the  work,  Mr.  Jefferson  took 
the  burden  and  the  honour. 

For  this  great  state  paper,  the  Decla 
ration  of  Independence,  it  is  easy  to 
claim  too  much  and  too  little.  Detract 
ors  can  say  that  it  contains  nothing  new, 


THOMAS  JEFFEESON  47 
that  its  principles  had  become  familiar 
in  the  heroic  struggles  of  the  Dutch 
against  Spain,  that  its  leading  features 
had  been  topics  of  discussion  in  the 
colonies  for  years,  and  that  much  of  its 
language  bears  close  resemblance  to  the 
Virginia  Bill  of  Eights.  As  truly  can 
eulogists  say  that  Mr.  Jefferson  did  not 
pose  as  an  inventor  of  political  princi 
ples,  that  he  claimed  no  monopoly  of 
knowledge  on  the  subjects  involved, 
that  he  was  selected  for  the  purpose  of 
putting  into  permanent,  intelligible  form 
the  grievances  and  the  rights  claimed  by 
the  colonists,  so  that  the  world,  then  and 
afterward,  might  have  the  best  possible 
statement  of  the  colonial  cause.  This, 
and  this  only,  was  the  duty  assigned 
him  ;  and  he  performed  it  so  well  that 
his  work,  approved  by  his  compatriots, 
has  become  one  of  the  charters  of  human 
freedom  which  posterity  reveres. 

The  Declaration,  as  written  by  Mr. 
Jefferson,  was  pruned  by  Congress,  and 


48  THOMAS  JEFFERSON 
very  much  improved  by  the  process. 
Debate  dragged  on  till  July  4,  when  the 
members,  greatly  pestered  by  the  flies 
which  swarmed  in  from  a  livery  stable 
near  by,  hurried  up  the  final  vote,  and 
adopted  the  amended  Declaration  late 
in  the  afternoon. 

Many  years  after,  Mr.  Jefferson  was 
confronted  with  the  charge  that  he  had 
borrowed  freely  from  an  alleged  "  Meck 
lenburg  Declaration  of  Independence " 
in  drafting  his  own.  He  vehemently 
protested  that  he  had  never  heard  of 
the  Mecklenburg  Declaration,  and  de 
nounced  it  as  spurious.  The  truth 
seems  to  be  that  on  May  31,  1775,  the 
citizens  of  the  county  of  Mecklenburg, 
North  Carolina,  met  at  Charlotte,  de 
clared  themselves  independent  of  Great 
Britain,  repudiated  the  authority  of  the 
royal  officials,  and  organised  a  local  gov 
ernment.  The  resolutions  adopted  by 
this  meeting  bear  no  resemblance  in  form 
or  language  to  the  Jefferson  Declaration. 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  49 
It  is  singular,  however,  that  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  should  have  forgotten  so  completely 
the  Mecklenburg  meeting  ;  for  the  reso 
lutions  there  adopted  were  sent  to  Con 
gress,  and  were  published  in  New  York 
and  Massachusetts.  They  likewise  at 
tracted  the  wrathful  notice  of  the  royak 
governors  of  NY)rth  Carolina  and 
Georgia,  and  were  officially  reported  to 
the  British  government,  being  held  to 
"  surpass  all  the  horrid  and  treasonable 
publications  which  the  inflammatory 
spirits  of  this  Continent  have  yet  pro 
duced.'7 


V. 

BE-  ELECTED  to  Congress,  but  declining 
to  serve,  Mr.  Jefferson  was  chosen  a 
member  of  the  Virginia  House  of  Dele 
gates,  where  he  took  his  seat  October  7, 
1776.  Virginia  laws  were  to  be  re 
modelled,  and  he  had  set  his  heart  upon 
the  work.  Aided  by  George  Wythe, 
James  Madison,  and  George  Mason,  he 
accomplished  those  reforms  which  hum 
bled  the  aristocracy,  divorced  Church 
from  State,  paved  the  way  for  popular 
education,  and  modernised  the  code. 

In  Virginia  landed  estates  had  been 
held  together  by  the  English  law  of  en 
tails  and  primogeniture.  The  eldest  son 
took  the  inheritance,  and  debts  could  not 
reach  it.  Thus  monopoly  and  privilege 
joined  hands  with  the  usual  results. 
Mr.  Jefferson  attacked  and  overthrew 
this  undemocratic  system.  The  English 
Church  had  been  " established"  by  law, 
supported  by  taxes,  and  thus  furnished 


THOMAS  JEFFEKSON  51 
with  ample  revenues  from  the  public 
treasury.  Mr.  Jefferson  combated  the 
establishment,  separated  the  Church 
from  the  State,  and  left  the  Episcopa 
lians  to  live  as  other  denominations  lived, 
on  the  voluntary  offerings  of  the  believ 
ers.  A  thorough- going  democrat  as 
ever  lived,  Mr.  Jefferson  feared  igno 
rance  and  superstition,  realising  that 
the  masses  must  be  educated  if  repub 
lican  government  was  to  succeed.  He 
proposed  an  elaborate  system  of  state 
education, —  the  common  school,  the 
high  school,  the  university,  and  the 
state  library.  His  plan  aroused  enthu 
siasm,  and  was  voted  through  ;  but  the 
counties  refused  to  tax  themselves  to 
support  the  system,  and  Mr.  Jefferson 
did  not  live  to  see  his  pet  scheme  at 
work. 

The  Judiciary  Act  was  drawn  by  Mr. 
Jefferson,  creating  the  various  courts, 
defining  their  jurisdiction,  and  prescrib 
ing  their  procedure.  Some  of  the  bar- 


52          THOMAS  JEFFEKSON 

barities  of  the  old  code  were  abolished, 
obsolete  statutes  dropped,  and  the  entire 
mass  simplified.  The  laws  on  the  sub 
ject  of  slavery  were  merely  codified  into 
a  new  bill  j  but  Mr.  Jefferson  prepared 
an  amendment  which  was  to  have  been 
offered  at  the  proper  time.  This  amend 
ment  provided  for  the  gradual  emanci 
pation  of  the  negroes,  their  removal 
from  this  country,  and  the  supplying  of 
their  place  by  the  importation  of  white 
immigrants  from  Europe.  The  proper 
time  for  this  amendment  did  not  arrive. 
All  of  Jefferson's  friends  —  Colonel 
Eland's  fate  being  fresh  in  the  memory 
— shirked  the  glories  of  martyrdom. 
And  so  Virginia  drifted  blindly,  blindly 
toward  the  breakers,  refusing  to  heed 
the  pilot  who  would  have  saved  her. 

Mr.  Jefferson  had  not  found  his  labour 
as  reformer  light  or  pleasant.  He 
aroused  fierce  opposition  and  rancorous 
resentmert.  The  church  people  never 
forgave  him  for  making  the  priest  take 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  53 
his  hands  out  of  the  public  treasury. 
The  landed  gentry  hated  him  as  long  as 
he  lived  because  he  had  cut  the  ground 
from  under  the  feet  of  aristocracy. 

The  church  establishment  died  hard. 
As  a  last  resort,  the  Anglicans  made 
common  cause  with  the  dissenters,  and 
endeavoured  to  have  a  "general  assess 
ment  "  levied  upon  the  people  for  the 
support  of  ministers  of  the  gospel.  This 
fund  was  to  be  divided  among  the  vari 
ous  denominations.  Hence  it  secured 
support  among  all,  the  Baptists  ex- 
cepted.  George  Washington  favoured  it. 
So  did  Eichard  Henry  Lee  and  Patrick 
Henry  ;  but  George  Mason  and  James 
Madison  fought  it  down. 

Mr.  Jefferson  was  most  earnest  in  his 
effort  to  establish  complete  religious 
freedom.  He  drafted  a  bill  for  that 
purpose,  but  it  could  not  then  be 
passed.  In  1786  it  became  a  law,  and 
Mr.  Jefferson  in  his  old  age  included  it 
among  those  achievements  of  which  he 
was  especially  proud. 


54          THOMAS   JEFFERSON 

Another  measure  proposed  by  Mr. 
Jefferson,  and  defeated  at  this  time,  but 
adopted  later,  was  the  removal  of  the 
capital  from  Williamsburg  to  Rich 
mond.  Many  of  those  who  owned 
property  at  "Williamsburg,  or  who  from 
sentiment  opposed  the  change,  never 
forgave  him. 


VI. 

DURING  the  first  three  years  of  the 
war  Mr.  Jefferson,  busy  with  the  revi 
sion  of  the  laws,  was  much  with  his 
growing  family  at  Monticello.  His 
brother-in-law,  Dabney  Carr,  who  had 
married  Martha  Jefferson  in  1765,  had 
died  at  the  very  dawning  of  greatness  j 
and  Jefferson  had  taken  the  widow  and 
the  orphans  to  his  home.  Henceforth 
the  Carr  children  were  treated  as  his 
own. 

In  1779  Mr.  Jefferson  was  elected 
governor  of  Virginia  by  a  small  major 
ity  over  his  old  friend,  John  Page.  For 
his  own  fame  and  peace  of  mind  it  would 
have  been  better  not  to  have  accepted 
this  office.  It  was  the  dark  period  of 
the  Eevolutionary  War.  The  people 
were  despondent ;  and  the  state  was  well 
nigh  exhausted,  not  of  men,  but  of  mu 
nitions  of  war. 

In  April,   1780,  came   a  letter  from 


56  THOMAS  JEFFEBSOST 
James  Madison,  who  was  in  Congress, 
stating  that  Washington's  army  was 
short  of  bread,  nearly  out  of  meat, 
and  was  on  the  point  of  dissolution. 
He  said  that  the  treasury  was  empty, 
the  public  credit  gone,  the  currency 
nearly  worthless,  the  states  pulling  one 
way  and  Congress  another,  and  every 
thing  in  extremity.  He  might  have 
added  that  there  were  feuds  in  each 
state,  in  Congress,  and  in  the  army, 
that  there  was  a  party  in  Congress  and 
in  the  army  bitterly  hostile  to  Wash 
ington.  He  might  have  completed  the 
picture  by  saying  that  on  the  track  of 
the  ragged,  hungry,  barefooted  army 
hung  the  vultures,  - — the  speculators, 
the  forestallers,  the  embezzlers,  who 
were  robbing  in  every  possible  way  the 
Congress,  the  people,  and  the  soldier. 

It  was  dreary  work  which  fell  on  Jef 
ferson.  Already  Virginia  had  sent  4, 500 
troops  to  the  army  j  but  the  cry  was  still 
for  more, —  more  men,  provisions,  arms, 


THOMAS  JEFFEESON  57 
wagons,  horses,  tents,  money,  anything 
and  everything  an  army  needs.  Jeffer 
son  was  busy ;  and  he  was  earnest,  and 
he  was  effective,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
about  that.  Virginia  was  raked  fore 
and  aft  for  supplies ;  and,  where  volun 
tary  contributions  stopped,  impressments 
began.  He  did  not  spare  his  own 
farms.  To  Gates,  in  North  Carolina, 
he  forwarded  troops  and  supplies,  much 
to  the  dismay  of  the  Virginians,  who 
dreaded  invasion  themselves.  At  Cam- 
den  General  Gates  lost  all  that  Jefferson 
had  sent,  and  much  more  besides. 

With  the  new  year  1781  began  Vir 
ginia's  worst  troubles.  British  vessels 
came  up  the  James,  bringing  troops 
commanded  by  Arnold.  He  landed  at 
Westover,  and  marched  upon  Rich 
mond.  There  were  no  forces  to  oppose 
him.  Too  much  time  had  been  lost  in 
guessing  whose  fleet  it  was  and  where 
bound.  The  legislature  of  Virginia  in 
session  at  Eichmond  scattered.  Gover- 


58  THOMAS  JEFFEBSON 
nor  Jefferson  got  into  a  state  of  great 
activity,  superintended  the  removal  of 
public  stores  and  papers,  and  did  all 
that  could  be  done  without  troops. 
Arnold  took  possession  of  Bichmond, 
rioted,  looted,  and  destroyed  at  his 
pleasure,  and  carried  away  as  much 
plunder  as  he  could  move.  Jefferson 
galloped  from  place  to  place  in  the  vi 
cinity,  doing  his  utmost  to  keep  pace 
with  events,  rode  his  horse  to  death,  car 
ried  saddle  and  bridle  to  a  farm-house, 
mounted  an  unbroken  colt,  continued 
to  ride,  and  thus  kept  in  view  of  an 
outrage  which  he  could  neither  prevent 
nor  punish.  The  Virginia  militia  came 
pouring  in  just  as  Arnold  went  pouring 
out,  and  Jefferson  was  left  to  bear  the 
unjust  censure  of  critics  who  claimed 
that  the  affair  could  have  been  managed 
better. 

The  month  of  May,  1781,  came. 
Cornwallis  had  at  last  marched  up  from 
the  south,  and  was  making  for  the  heart 


THOMAS   JEFFEKSOK          59 

of  Virginia.  By  May  20  he  was  at 
Petersburg. 

The  Virginia  legislature,  after  having 
dodged  about  from  place  to  place,  was 
in  session  at  Charlotteville.  The  gover 
nor  was  at  Monticello  with  his  family. 
Jefferson's  term  had  expired  with  June  1, 
but  no  successor  had  been  elected.  On 
June  4,  before  sun-up,  came  a  messen 
ger,  who  had  ridden  fast  and  far,  to  tell 
the  governor  that  the  British  were  com 
ing.  Tarleton  and  his  band  hoped  to  be 
able  to  capture  the  state  government, 
and  but  for  a  slight  delay  would  have 
done  so.  Legislators  broke  for  the 
woods  once  more ;  and  Mr.  Jefferson, 
after  having  first  sent  his  family  to  a 
place  of  refuge,  went  off  on  foot,  just 
as  the  British  began  mounting  the  hill. 
A  servant  held  a  saddle-horse  ready  near 
by,  and  the  governor  rode  away  to  re 
join  his  family.  He  acted  as  governor 
no  more. 

Tarleton' s  men  did  no  damage  at  Mon- 


60  THOMAS  JEFFERSON 
ticello,  but  Lord  Cornwallis  wreaked 
vengeance  on  Jefferson's  farm  at  Elk 
Hill.  Grain,  provisions,  cattle,  were 
seized,  fences  and  growing  crops  were 
destroyed,  the  throats  of  colts  were  cut, 
and  the  fine  horses  taken.  Thirty  ne 
groes  were  carried  off,  to  die  of  fever 
and  small-pox  in  British  camps. 

So  wide -spread  was  the  feeling  of  dis 
satisfaction  with  Mr.  Jefferson  that  there 
was  some  talk  of  an  impeachment.  A 
young  member  named  Nicholas  —  mem 
ber  from  Albemarle,  at  that  —  moved 
resolutions  of  inquiry.  To  meet  his  ac 
cusers,  Mr.  Jefferson  offered  himself  for 
re-election  to  the  legislature  for  his 
county  of  Albermarle,  and  was  unani 
mously  elected.  He  challenged  the  in 
vestigation  in  the  legislature,  but  no 
accusers  appeared.  He  was  furnished, 
however,  with  a  list  of  the  objections 
which  had  been  urged  against  his  admin 
istration  ;  and  he  replied  to  them.  There 
the  matter  dropped.  His  friends  fol- 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  61 
lowed  up  the  advantage  by  securing  the 
adoption  of  a  resolution  in  which  the 
legislature  thanked  him  for  his  "  impar 
tial,  upright,  and  attentive  administra 
tion."  But  the  incident  wounded  Mr. 
Jefferson  deeply ;  and  he  retired  to 
private  life,  vowing  that  he  would  serve 
the  people  no  more. 


VII. 

AFTER  having  been  hunted  out  of 
Charlottesville  by  Tarleton,  the  legisla 
ture  found  it  difficult  to  assemble  a 
quorum  ;  but  on  June  12  William  Nelson 
was  elected  governor  to  succeed  Mr.  Jef 
ferson. 

Weary  of  the  years  of  toil  he  had 
undergone,  cut  to  the  heart  by  the  cen 
sures  which  had  been  heaped  upon  his 
administration,  and  anxious  about  his 
beloved  wife  whose  health  had  given 
way  under  so  many  shocks,  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  remained  in  retirement  at  a  distant 
farm  all  the  summer  of  1781. 

M.  de  Marbois,  secretary  of  the  French 
legation  at  Philadelphia,  had  asked  Mr. 
Jefferson  for  certain  information  con 
cerning  Virginia,  expecting,  no  doubt,  a 
brief  reply  in  the  usual  style  of  statistical 
,  reports.  There  were  twenty-three  ques 
tions  to  be  answered,  and  a  page  to  each 
would  probably  have  been  as  much  as 


THOMAS  JEFFERSOK  63 
the  Frenchman  cared  to  read.  Mr.  Jef 
ferson  relished  the  task  so  keenly  that 
his  report  (Notes  on  Virginia)  makes 
a  printed  book  of  three  hundred  and 
thirty  -  six  pages,  —  a  remarkable  and 
valuable  work.  It  is  a  wilderness  of  dry 
facts  and  figures,  but  the  genius  of  the 
author  makes  it  blossom  as  the  rose. 
Writing  at  leisure  during  his  summer 
vacation,  far  from  noise  and  interrup 
tion,  Mr.  Jefferson  poured  forth  the  ful 
ness  of  a  rich  mind,  supplied  a  complete 
handbook  of  Virginia,  and  sowed  it  with 
profound  reflections,  which  even  now  the 
student  of  human  affairs  may  read  with 
profit. 

In  May,  1782,  Mrs.  Jefferson  gave 
birth  to  their  sixth  child,  and  was  never 
able  to  be  up  again.  She  lingered  on 
until  September,  tenderly  nursed  by  her 
husband,  who  rarely  left  her  bedside 
day  or  night.  When  she  died,  he  was 
led  from  the  room,  staggering  from  the 
blow ;  and,  on  reaching  the  library,  he 


64          THOMAS   JEFFEBSON 

fainted.  For  many  weeks  he  suffered 
all  the  tortures  of  the  greatest  of  griefs ; 
and  to  this  succeeded  a  stupor  from 
which  nothing  seemed  able  to  arouse 
him. 

Friends  in  Congress,  in  deep  sympathy 
with  him,  thought  he  might  now  be 
drawn  back  into  public  life.  He  was 
elected  to  the  Peace  Commission  which 
was  negotiating  with  Great  Britain,  and 
accepted  ;  but,  before  he  could  sail  for 
Europe,  news  came  that  the  prelimi 
naries  had  already  been  signed. 

On  June  6,  1783,  the  Virginia  legis 
lature  elected  him  to  Congress.  By 
that  body  he  was  given  a  flattering  re 
ception,  was  appointed  to  the  most  im 
portant  committees,  and  he  was  soon 
steeped  in  congenial  work.  He  acted 
as  chairman  of  the  committee  which 
arranged  the  ceremonial  of  Washing 
ton's  resignation  as  commander-in- chief. 
The  speech  of  General  Mifflin,  president 
of  Congress,  on  that  occasion  is  credited 


THOMAS   JEFFEBSON          65 

to  Mr.  Jefferson,  and  is,  perhaps,  the 
most  beautiful  of  his  compositions. 

During  this  session,  Gouverneur  Mor 
ris's  plan  for  a  national  currency  was 
acted  upon  by  Congress,  its  leading  feat 
ure  being  the  decimal  notation,  and  its 
unit  being  one-fourteen  hundredths  of  a 
dollar.  Mr.  Jefferson  heartily  approved 
the  decimal  principle,  but  contended 
that  the  unit  was  too  cumbersome.  In 
lieu  thereof,  he  proposed  the  dollar  as 
the  unit  of  value.  His  reasoning  was 
conclusive,  and  his  plan  was  adopted. 
In  this  way  he  earned  the  right  to  be 
called  the  father  of  the  American  dollar. 

At  this  session,  Mr.  Jefferson  tendered 
to  Congress  the  deed  of  cession  by  which 
Virginia  made  over  the  North-west  Ter 
ritory  to  the  federal  government;  and 
he  drew  up  the  plan  for  its  temporary 
administration.  His  proposition  to 
abolish  slavery  in  the  new  territories 
after  the  year  1800  was  rejected  by  one 
vote.  A  New  Jersey  member  who  fa- 


66          THOMAS  JEFFEKSON 

voured  the  measure  was  absent,  and  thus 
the  course  of  history  was  probably 
changed  by  the  negligence  of  a  single 
Congressman.  In  Jefferson's  report  on 
this  territorial  question  occurs  for  the 
first  time  the  suggestion  of  the  plan 
by  which  future  states  could  be  admitted 
into  the  Union.  He  proposed  a  bill 
for  the  location  and  sale  of  the  public 
lands,  but  it  failed  to  pass.  He  like 
wise  made  the  attempt  to  breathe  some 
life  into  the  central  government  by 
creating  committees  which  should  wield 
executive  powers  during  adjournments 
of  Congress.  The  plan  was  tried,  and 
would  not  work.  As  chairman  of  com 
mittee,  it  was  his  pleasure  to  sign  the 
Treaty  of  Peace  with  Great  Britain, 
which  established  the  independence  of 
the  United  States. 


VIII. 

IN  May,  1784,  Congress  appointed  Mr. 
Jefferson  minister  plenipotentiary  to  act 
with  Dr.  Franklin  and  John  Adams  in 
negotiating  treaties  of  commerce  with 
European  nations.  Mr.  Jefferson  set 
out  for  France  in  July,  1784,  taking 
with  him  his  eldest  daughter  Martha. 
His  two  other  daughters  (sole  survivors 
of  all  his  children)  he  left  in  Virginia 
with  their  aunt,  Mrs.  Eppes. 

Dr.  Franklin  was  already  in  France, 
and  Mr.  Adams  in  Holland.  Mr.  Jef 
ferson  reached  Paris  August  6,  1784 ; 
and  the  three  ministers  were  soon  in 
consultation.  They  drew  up  such  a 
treaty  as  they  wished  to  get  signed  — 
a  highly  moral,  humane,  and  progres 
sive  document  —  but  Europe  declined 
to  sign.  The  new-born  republic  did  not 
inspire  confidence,  and  its  commerce  was 
underrated.  ' i  Old  Frederick  of  Prussia ' > 
met  the  American  overtures  cordially, 
but  other  monarchs  held  aloof. 


68          THOMAS   JEFFEBSOK 

In  1785  Mr.  Adams  was  appointed 
minister  to  England,  Dr.  Franklin  ob 
tained  leave  to  return  home,  and  Mr. 
Jefferson  remained  in  Paris  as  sole  min 
ister  of  the  United  States  to  France. 
One  was  enough.  The  duties  of  the 
office  consisted  mainly  in  keeping  up 
a  respectable  appearance,  urging  com 
mercial  concessions,  entertaining  all 
Americans  who  happened  to  pass  that 
way,  executing  commissions  for  friends 
at  home,  and  meeting  with  dignified 
refusal  the  various  hungry  creditors  who 
demanded  that  he  should  pay  the  debts 
of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Jefferson 
measured  up  to  the  requirements  of  the 
position  as  well  as  any  man  who  could 
have  been  selected. 

-He  rented  and  sumptuously  furnished 
a  palace,  entertained  much  elegant  com 
pany,  and  royally  spent  his  nine-thou 
sand-dollar  salary,  and  more  besides,  in 
keeping  up  a  creditable  appearance. 
He  urged  commercial  questions  upon 


THOMAS  JEFFEESON  69 
the  French  government  with  tireless  per 
sistence.  In  speech  and  in  writing, 
month  in  and  month  out,  he  discussed 
tobacco,  rice,  salted  meat,  salted  fish, 
and  whale  oil,  until  there  was  nothing 
more  to  be  said  with  effect  or  heard 
with  patience  upon  the  dreaded  sub 
jects. 

He  executed  all  sorts  of  commissions 
for  societies,  colleges,  friends  individual 
and  friends  collective  —  philosophical 
apparatus,  recent  agricultural  inven 
tions,  improved  implements  and  seeds, 
a  watch  for  Madison,  a  lamp  for  E.  H. 
Lee,  books  for  Wythe  and  Edmund  Ean- 
dolph  —  with  all  the  zeal  of  a  young 
Congressman  serving  an  old  constituency. 
Hungry  creditors  were  fed  on  great  ex 
pectations  ;  and,  when  such  creditors  had 
the  bad  taste  to  complain  of  the  diet, 
Mr.  Jefferson  firmly  shut  off  communi 
cations.  It  is  probable  that  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  never  enjoyed  five  years  of  public 
service  so  much  as  he  did  those  spent 


70  THOMAS  JEFFEKSON 
in  Europe.  He  placed  his  daughter  at 
the  best  convent  school  in  Paris,  and 
was  free  to  travel  about  and  see  every 
thing.  He  studied  the  people,  the  laws, 
the  government,  the  architecture,  the 
canals,  the  commerce,  the  agriculture, 
and  manufactures  with  never-failing  in 
terest. 

Early  in  1786  he  went  to  London  to 
assist  Mr.  Adams  in  negotiating  a  com 
mercial  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  and 
to  effect  some  arrangement  with  the  Bar- 
bary  powers.  Neither  with  Christians 
nor  Mohammedans  could  the  Americans 
prevail.  England  was  already  enjoying, 
unconditionally,  the  American  trade  j 
and  she  preferred  to  let  well  enough 
alone.  The  Barbary  States,  exercising 
the  right  to  capture  and  hold  to  ransom 
such  Christian  vessels  as  sailed  Moham- 
medan  waters  without  license,  would  not 
surrender  such  a  principle  unless  paid  a 
tribute.  Europe  had  recognised  this 
right,  and  had  established  the  precedent 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  71 
of  paying  the  tribute.  The  American 
ministers  were  not  prepared  to  pay,  and 
therefore  the  negotiations  fell  through. 

Adams  favoured  tribute,  Jefferson  war. 
When  the  corsairs  seized  an  American 
vessel,  and  held  the  crew  in  captivity, 
Mr.  Jefferson  at  once  drew  up  an  elabo 
rate  paper  on  the  subject.  He  proposed 
that  a  European  alliance  should  be 
formed,  each  of  the  contracting  nations 
to  furnish  a  frigate,  and  that  war  should 
be  made  on  Morocco,  Tripoli,  Algiers, 
and  Tunis  —  the  offending  infidel  States. 
The  plan  was  really  fine,  needing  only 
the  frigates.  Europe  naturally  waited 
for  Mr.  Jefferson  to  produce  his  frigate. 
He  could  not  do  so,  and  his  well- laid 
scheme  went  to  nothing. 

Mr.  Jefferson  was  presented  at  the 
English  court,  was  duly  stared  at,  super 
ciliously  passed  over,  and  treated  to  a 
proper  turn  of  the  royal  back.  He  was 
so  outraged  by  the  contemptuous  inso 
lence  shown  him  that  he  could  never 
afterwards  think  of  it  with  comfort. 


72          THOMAS   JEFFEESON 

Eeturning  to  France,  Mr.  Jefferson 
resumed  his  labours  in  behalf  of  Ameri 
can  commerce.  In  September,  1786, 
while  out  for  a  walk,  he  fell  and  fract 
ured  his  wrist.  Bad  surgery  caused  the 
injury  to  become  permanent,  one  con 
sequence  of  which  was  that  the  beloved 
violin  had  to  be  laid  aside.  Advised  to 
try  the  waters  at  Aix,  he  set  out  upon  a 
tour  which  extended  through  southern 
France  and  northern  Italy.  Travelling 
by  easy  stages  in  his  own  carriage,  with 
post  horses,  he  took  time  to  study  the 
soil,  the  products,  and  the  people,  mak 
ing  notes  of  things  which  interested 
him.  Excepting  the  journal  of  Arthur 
Young,  we  know  of  no  description  of 
the  French  people  which  more  satisfac 
torily  pictures  the  situation  prior  to  the 
Ee volution  than  the  journal  of  Mr.  Jef 
ferson.  Wherever  he  went,  his  genuine 
sympathy  for  the  common  people  found 
expression.  He  noted  their  dress,  food, 
work,  wages,  farm  tools,  huts,  general 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  73 
condition.  Even  to  this  day  there  is  a 
glow  of  colour  upon  his  picture  of  the 
life  of  the  wretched  peasantry  of  France, 
ground  down  by  the  lords  of  the  Church 
and  the  State.  In  his  letters  home  his 
indignation  breaks  out:  "It  is  a  gov 
ernment  of  wolves  over  sheep, ' J  u  a  true 
picture  of  the  country  to  which  they  say 
we  shall  pass  hereafter,  and  where  we 
are  to  see  God  and  his  angels  in  splen 
dour,  and  crowds  of  the  damned  tram 
pled  under  their  feet." 

In  1787  Mr.  Jefferson's  daughter 
Maria  joined  him  in  Paris,  where  she, 
too,  was  placed  in  a  convent  school. 
His  youngest  child  had  died  at  the  home 
of  Mrs.  Eppes  in  1785. 

In  March,  1787,  he  went  to  Holland 
to  aid  Mr.  Adams  in  making  satisfac 
tory  arrangements  with  the  Dutch  bank 
ers  who  had  loaned  the  colonies  money 
when  no  others  would  do  it.  The  United 
States  was  not  ready  to  pay  ;  and  the  old 
loan  was  adjusted  by  making  a  new  one, 


74          THOMAS   JEFFERSOX 
subject  to  the  approval  of  Congress.    Be 
fore  returning  to  France,  Mr.  Jefferson 
made  a  tour  through  Germany. 

With  the  Revolutionary  movement  in 
France  it  was  natural  that  he  should 
sympathise.  So  long  as  he  remained  in 
the  country,  he  was  as  actively  its  friend 
and  counsellor  as  a  minister  could  pos 
sibly  be.  Lafayette  and  other  liberal 
nobles  sought  his  advice.  Montmorin, 
the  king's  minister,  encouraged  him  to 
give  it ;  and  the  bishop  of  Bordeaux, 
chairman  of  the  committee  whose  duty 
it  was  to  draft  the  Constitution,  invited 
Jefferson  to  attend  the  sittings.  This 
high  compliment  he  could  not  accept, 
but  he  did  prepare  a  programme  for 
both  king  and  people.  He  proposed 
that  Louis  should  come  forward  and  put 
himself  at  the  head  of  the  Eevolution, 
and  grant  a  charter  of  liberties  such  as 
would  change  France  into  a  constitu 
tional  monarchy.  Louis  had  no  policy, 
the  nobles  who  then  controlled  him  would 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSOK  75 
make  no  such  concessions ;  and,  when  a 
more  liberal,  better  frightened  crowd 
got  hold  of  him,  the  reformers  wanted 
concessions  more  sweeping,  and  thus 
each  party  went  its  own  way  —  Louis  to 
the  scaffold,  and  the  Eevolutionists  to 
the  Terror. 

In  1789  Mr.  Jefferson  applied  for 
leave  of  absence,  intending  to  return  to 
France  after  a  five  months'  vacation  at 
home.  He  obtained  leave,  reached  Mon- 
ticello  by  Christmas,  1789,  was  given  a 
touching  welcome  by  neighbours,  friends, 
relatives,  and  slaves,  and  never  left  na 
tive  land  again. 


IX. 

DURING  a  part  of  the  time  spent  by 
Mr.  Jefferson  in  southern  France  and 
Italy, — gazing  with  rapture  at  choice 
bits  of  ancient  architecture,  peering  into 
the  pots  of  the  peasants  to  find  what  the 
rustics  fed  on,  exploring  the  mysteries 
of  cheese-making,  vine- dressing,  and 
rice-hulling, — a  select  body  of  American 
statesmen,  sitting  with  closed  doors  in 
Philadelphia,  were  busily  at  work  fram 
ing  an  entirely  new  government  for  the 
United  States. 

Mr.  Jefferson  had  not  been  satisfied 
with  the  old  Confederation,  mainly  be 
cause  the  central  government  was  vested 
with  no  power  over  the  citizen.  It 
could  only  act  upon  the  states  ;  and,  when 
the  states  chose  not  to  be  acted  on, 
there  was  inglorious  paralysis.  Mr.  Jef 
ferson  had  spoken  clearly  of  the  neces 
sity  of  laying  the  rod  on  some  of  the 
states,  holding  that  where  two  parties 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  77 
enter  into  a  compact,  there  resulted  a 
power  in  either  to  compel  the  other  to 
carry  it  out.  Hence  he  was  in  sym 
pathy  with  the  movement  to  have  neces 
sary  changes  made  in  the  Articles  of 
Confederation.  The  central  government 
must  have  exclusive  control  of  national 
affairs  and  foreign  relations,  with  power 
to  act  upon  the  citizens  of  the  states 
directly  :  while  the  states  must  be  left  in 
possession  of  what  concerned  their  own 
home  affairs. 

When  Mr.  Madison  forwarded  to  his 
friend  Jefferson  a  copy  of  the  completed 
Constitution,  his  friend  Jefferson  was 
startled  and  dissatisfied.  The  liberties 
of  the  citizen  were  not  sufficiently 
guarded,  there  was  no  bill  of  rights, 
no  precaution  against  monopolies  and 
standing  armies.  Freedom  of  conscience 
and  of  speech  was  not  guaranteed,  and 
the  right  of  habeas  corpus  was  not  made 
secure.  Presidents  might  succeed  them 
selves  indefinitely,  and  thus  become 


78          THOMAS  JEFFEBSON 

kings.  Nevertheless,  he  reluctantly  gave 
his  support  to  the  Constitution,  trusting 
to  amendments  to  cure  its  defects. 
Therefore,  when  the  state's- rights  men 
had  their  one  chance  to  enforce  their 
views  by  holding  off  Virginia's  ratifica 
tion,  Patrick  Henry  and  George  Mason 
got  no  help  from  Jefferson.  On  the  con 
trary,  Mr.  Madison  used  with  effect  a 
letter  from  Jefferson,  in  which  he  ad 
vised  that  the  Constitution  be  ratified, 
subject  to  amendment. 

Mr.  Jefferson  was  still  abroad. when 
the  new  government  went  into  operation. 
About  the  time  when  he  sat  himself 
down  at  Nancy  to  write  out  the  mathe 
matical  formula  for  the  mould-board  of 
a  turn-plough,  President  Washington, 
Alexander  Hamilton,  James  Madison, 
and  John  Jay  were  tugging  with  might 
and  main,  in  Kew  York,  to  make  the 
new  machinery  of  constitutional  govern 
ment  work. 

So   it   was   that   when   Mr.    Jefferson 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  79 
reached  home  from  Europe,  and  ac 
cepted  Washington's  repeated  invitation 
to  enter  the  cabinet  as  Secretary  of 
State,  he  was  very  decidedly  in  the 
position  of  the  sleeper  who  wakes  too 
late.  Hamilton,  as  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  had  already  gathered  into  his 
strong  hands  the  reins  of  power,  formu 
lated  the  plans  which  were  to  dwarf  the 
states,  drawn  to  his  support  the  capital 
ists  and  the  speculators,  laid  hold  of 
the  principle  that  the  government  was 
greater  than  the  Constitution,  and  was 
steering  boldly,  steering  with  dauntless 
resolution,  toward  nationality  and  im 
perialism. 

A  heated  debate  was  in  progress  on 
the  question  of  the  assumption  of  state 
debts  when  Mr.  Jefferson  arrived  in 
New  York.  Madison  led  the  opposi 
tion  ;  and  Hamilton  stood  repulsed,  not 
defeated.  To  whom  should  he  turn  for 
aid  but  to  Jefferson  I  He  met  that  un 
suspecting  philosopher  in  the  street, 


80  THOMAS  JEFFEKSON 
walked  him  up  and  down  before  the 
president's  door  for  half  an  hour,  told 
him  the  Union  was  in  danger,  New 
England  about  to  secede,  a  general 
smash-up  impending,  and  appealed  to 
Jefferson  to  save  the  young  republic. 

Jefferson  fell  into  the  snare.  A  din 
ner  at  Jefferson's  was  agreed  on  —  one  of 
those  nice,  quiet,  harmless  little  dinners 
at  which  so  many  Samsons  lose  hair. 
Several  friends  were  to  meet  Jefferson 
and  Hamilton,  to  talk  matters  over. 
The  day  came,  the  guests  came,  the  din 
ner  came  and  was  eaten.  Then  the 
political  trader  cast  his  net.  The  East 
wants  assumption  of  state  debts  ?  Yes. 
The  South  wants  the  federal  city  lo 
cated  on  the  Potomac?  Yes.  Both 
measures  at  present  stand  at  bay  for  the 
lack  of  a  few  votes?  Yes.  It  so  hap 
pens  that  those  who  want  assumption 
oppose  the  Potomac,  and  that  those  who 
want  the  Potomac  oppose  assumption? 
Yes.  Then  why  not  do  a  little  bargain- 


THOMAS   JEFFEKSON          81 

ing  I  No  sooner  said  than  done ;  and 
Hamilton  carried  assumption,  while  the 
South  got  Washington  City. 

This  bargain  soon  became  a  thorn  in 
the  side  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  and  its  wound 
long  rankled.  He  claimed  that  Hamil 
ton  had  duped  him. 

Mr.  Hamilton,  born  in  the  British 
West  Indies,  remained  more  or  less  alien 
in  feeling  to  the  country  of  his  adoption, 
and  made  110  secret  of  his  preference  for 
English  institutions.  With  an  advent 
urer's  natural  sense  of  his  own  weak 
ness,  he  clung  to  the  rich  and  the  great, 
becoming  their  advocate  and  leader  in 
the  United  States,  much  as  two  other 
upstarts,  Canning  and  Disraeli,  did  in 
Great  Britain.  William  Pitt  himself 
did  not  despise  "the  mob"  with  more 
heartiness  than  Alexander  Hamilton. 
According  to  his  view,  it  had  pleased 
the  Almighty  to  create  j  us t  a  very  few  men 
who  deserved  to  enjoy  a  monopoly  of  the 
good  things  of  government.  For  these 


82  THOMAS  JEFFERSON 
select  worthies  the  banquet  of  national 
favours  was  to  be  spread,  and  they  were 
welcome  to  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry ; 
for  on  the  morrow  they  would  not  die, 
but  would  feast  again  —  they  or  their 
offspring.  e  i  The  mob, "  "  the  unwashed 
multitude, "  the  unfavoured  mass  of  the 
people,  were  to  be  content  with  such 
crumbs,  scraps,  and  bones  as  might  be 
flung  to  them  after  the  banquet  was 
over  j  and  the  resignation  with  which 
they  devoured  these  leavings  was  to  be 
sweetened  by  the  remembrance  that 
their  labour  had  furnished  the  feast. 

In  Great  Britain  these  happy  results 
had  been  brought  about  by  certain  class 
regulations  which  courts  had  consented 
to  call  laws.  God  pity  the  man  who  can 
read  some  of  the  things  they  call  laws, 
and  not  have  eyes  that  are  dimmed  with 
tears  ! 

In  England  they  had  a  funding  sys 
tem,  by  means  of  which  a  perpetual 
debt,  an  everlasting  burden,  was  fixed 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  83 
to  the  backs  of  "the  mob,"  who  were 
thus  held  in  bondage  from  age  to  age, 
labouring  patiently  for  those  who  owned 
the  debt.  In  England  they  had  a  bank 
ing  system,  wherein  the  sovereign  power 
to  create  money  was  handed  over  to  a 
private  corporation,  the  public  credit 
farmed  out  to  speculators,  and  com 
merce  of  all  kinds  held  in  subjection  to 
the  banks.  In  England  they  had  a  pro 
tective  system,  whereby  the  government 
favoured  certain  industries  at  the  expense 
of  others.  The  many  who  were  robbed 
by  this  system  were  asked  to  submit 
cheerfully  on  the  plea  that  the  nation, 
as  a  whole,  would  be  benefited  by  the 
spoliation.  If  the  class  which  was  robbed 
saw  in  this  plea  a  principle  which  would 
excuse  any  other  robber  whatever,  it 
was  because  of  the  perversity  of  their 
hearts, —  a  perversity  incident  to  neglect 
of  education  in  the  mysteries  of  legisla 
tion. 

Hamilton  looked  upon  these  English 


84  THOMAS  JEFFERSOX 
institutions,  saw  that  they  were  good, 
and  straightway  imported  them.  In 
England  they  had  established  a  partner 
ship  between  the  government  and  the 
privileged.  Hamilton  hoped  and  be 
lieved  they  would,  in  the  course  of  time, 
bear  the  same  fruits  here.  For  that  pur 
pose  he  introduced  them.  For  that 
reason  Jefferson  opposed  them.  The 
citizen  of  the  United  States  who  can 
at  this  day  look  abroad  on  the  Re 
public,  and  be  certain  that  Jefferson's 
fears  and  Hamilton's  hopes  have  not 
been  realised,  belongs  to  the  type  of 
man  we  call  optimistic. 

President  Washington  believed  him 
self  to  be  non-partisan.  In  fact,  he  was  a 
Federalist.  No  matter  how  earnestly  he 
might  seek  advice,  no  matter  how  long 
he  might  hesitate,  he  never  failed  to  go 
with  Hamilton  on  the  vital  questions 
necessary  to  Hamilton's  system. 

The  tremendous  centralising  tenden 
cies  which  were  coiled  within  the  meas- 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  85 
ures  already  alluded  to  were  strength 
ened  by  another.  Implied  powers  in 
the  federal  government  were  boldly 
asserted,  and  thus  a  doctrine  was  estab 
lished  which,  when  wedded  to  the  gen 
eral  welfare  clause,  swept  states' -rights 
out  of  the  way,  and  founded  imperial 
ism. 

Mr.  Jefferson's  work  as  Secretary  of 
State,  while  plentiful,  was  not  very 
heavy,  save  as  it  brought  him  into  con 
flict  with  Hamilton.  There  it  was  de 
cidedly  heavy.  The  two  were  "  pitted 
against  each  other  constantly,  like  fight 
ing  cocks ' ' ;  and  for  this  kind  of  thing 
Jefferson  had  the  least  possible  taste. 
He  dearly  loved  to  draw  up  a  plan  of 
battle,  and  he  dearly  loved  to  see  some 
one  else  do  the  fighting.  Gentle,  pru 
dent,  politic,  he  shrank  instinctively 
from  quarrels,  angry  debates,  and  per 
sonal  collisions.  The  clash  of  ideas  was 
music  to  his  ears ;  and,  in  marshalling 
the  cohorts  of  one  principle  against 


86  THOMAS  JEFFEKSON 
another  on  paper,  he  was  Napoleonic. 
When,  however,  it  came  to  a  clash  of 
men,  or  when  the  discussion  of  ideas 
degenerated  into  personalities,  Mr.  Jef 
ferson  preferred  to  soar  above  the  storm, 
and  let  it  rage  beneath  him. 

Fighting  the  battles  of  Hamilton, 
during  these  days  came  Fennels  Gazette, 
a  paper  in  which  the  financial  secretary 
was  glorified  in  a  manner  highly  exas 
perating  to  Jefferson,  Madison,  and 
friends.  Such  a  devil  must  be  fought 
with  fire,  and  the  Virginians  brought 
Freneau  to  town.  Freneau  had  some 
literary  reputation,  had  written  much 
rhyme  which  passed  for  poetry  with  the 
credulous,  and  was,  in  fact,  as  ready  a 
man  with  pen,  partisanship,  and  politi 
cal  gall  as  one  would  care  to  meet. 
Upon  Madison's  recommendation,  Jef 
ferson  found  a  soft  place  for  Freneau 
in  the  government  service, —  a  place 
in  which  abundant  leisure  and  a  sal 
ary  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSOST  87 
invited  the  poet  to  abide.  In  a  short 
while  Freneau's  National  Gazette  was 
launched.  Fenno's  Gazette  had  vented 
much  contempt  upon  the  Constitution. 
"The  shilly-shally  thing"  had  offended 
Eepublicans  by  publishing  a  "court  cir 
cular"  of  the  doings  of  society  in  the 
presidential  circle,  and  had  opened  its 
columns  to  John  Adams's  "Discourses 
on  Davila,"  in  which  discourses  there 
were  sentiments  no  good  Eepublican 
could  endure.  Freneau  understood  that 
he  was  set  up  to  counteract  all  this,  that 
he  was  brought  on  the  arena  to  fight  5 
and  at  it  he  went.  He  slashed  away  at 
Hamilton  —  Hamilton's  pet  measures, 
Hamilton's  pet  doctrines,  and  Hamil 
ton's  corrupt  squadron  of  henchmen  — 
with  growing  gusto  and  unquenchable 
zeal.  Presently  the  missiles  flew  higher 
than  Hamilton,  and  Washington  himself 
was  irreverently  handled.  Not  wishing 
the  President  to  remain  in  ignorance  of 
what  one  of  his  clerks  thought  of  him, 


88          THOMAS   JEFFEKSON 
Freneau  had  the  impudence  to  send  three 
copies  of  his  paper  regularly  to  the  Pres 
idential  mansion. 

"That  damned  rascal,  Freneau/' 
caused  the  Father  of  his  Country .  to 
become  "warm  and  sore"  ;  and  Jeffer 
son  was  spoken  to  on  the  subject. 
Nevertheless,  the  clerk  held  his  posi 
tion. 

The  Federalists,  of  course,  loudly 
berated  Jefferson,  accusing  him  of  in 
spiring  Freneau' s  attacks.  This  was 
denied  at  the  time,  both  by  Jefferson 
and  his  clerk.  Much  later  in  his  life 
Freneau  changed  his  mind  about  it,  and 
admitted  that  Jefferson  had  taken  an 
active  part  in  the  crusade. 

Hamilton  grew  restive  under  the  as 
saults,  took  up  the  controversy  himself, 
passed  Freneau  over,  struck  full  at 
Jefferson,  hoping  to  draw  that  sedate 
philosopher  into  the  fray.  The  effort 
failed.  Jefferson's  friends  swarmed 
about  Hamilton,  jabbing  at  him  wher- 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  89 
ever  they  could.  Jefferson  himself  held 
prudently  aloof.  Not  until  Washington, 
in  his  grandly  pacific  way,  intervened, 
trying  to  allay  the  strife  between  his 
tw.o  secretaries,  did  Mr.  Jefferson  speak 
out.  Then,  indeed,  he  expressed  him 
self  elaborately  in  a  letter  which  was,  in 
effect,  a  complete  vindication  of  himself 
and  a  sweeping  arraignment  of  his  oppo 
nent. 

The  Eevolution  in  France  having  guil 
lotined  the  king,  Washington's  cabinet 
was  agitated  by  several  problems  grow 
ing  out  of  that  event.  France  and  Eng 
land  were  about  to  go  to  war :  was  the 
United  States  to  be  neutral  ?  The  French 
Republic  had  commissioned  a  minister 
to  the  United  States  :  was  he  to  be  re 
ceived  f 

To  each  of  these  questions  the  cabinet 
answered,  Yes. 

Genet,  the  French  minister,  came, 
and  with  him  came  a  very  lively  series 
of  complications.  He  was  quite  a 


90  THOMAS  JEFFEESON 
young  man,  ardent  and  excitable  by 
nature  j  was  imbued  with  the  spirit  of 
the  great  Eevolution ;  and,  when  he 
landed  at  Charleston,  he  was  bubbling 
over  with  enthusiasm  for  liberty,  equal 
ity,  and  fraternity.  He  had  heard  of 
our  young  and  rising  Eepublic,  had  been 
told  that  French  armies,  French  fleets, 
French  supplies,  and  French  money  had 
borne  a  somewhat  conspicuous  share  in 
wresting  the  colonies  from  the  grip  of 
Great  Britain  ;  and  he  did  not  doubt  for 
a  moment  that  he  would  be  welcomed  in 
America  with  open  arms.  France  was 
now  battling  against  England  for  her  own 
freedom.  What  more  natural  than  that 
the  French  minister  should  expect  sym 
pathy  and  encouragement  in  the  United 
States  f  That  was  all  Genet  expected  : 
1  i  We  want  no  help  from  you.  We  only 
want  the  sympathy  and  kindness  which 
a  friend  shows  when  one  is  in  distress. " 

Genet  asked  little,  and  got  less.     The 
first  official  with  whom  he  came  in  con- 


THOMAS  JEFFEKSOtf          91 

tact  was  old  General  Moultrie,  then  gov 
ernor  of  South  Carolina.  Genet  asked 
Moultrie  for  leave  to  commission  priva 
teers.  The  old  soldier,  unacquainted 
with  international  law,  and  not  familiar 
with  any  other  sort,  told  Genet  that  "he 
knew  of  no  law  against  it. ' '  The  French 
man  straightway  began  to  issue  the  com 
missions  he  had  brought  over,  and  pri 
vateers  began  to  make  search  on  the 
high  seas  for  English  vessels  weaker  than 
themselves.  Leaving  these  fires  burning 
brightly  in  his  rear,  Genet  set  out  for 
Philadelphia,  received  rousing  ovations 
on  the  way,  was  feasted,  toasted,  cheered, 
and  harangued,  until  he  was  thoroughly 
assured  that  the  American  heart  was  as 
warm  as  his  own.  When  the  ovations 
were  all  over,  when  banquets,  addresses, 
toasts,  balls,  street  parades,  and  miscel. 
laneous  raptures  were  ended,  Genet  came 
in  contact  with  Washington's  govern* 
ment  ;  and  he  must  have  felt  as  the 
swimmer  might,  who  finishes  a  bath  in 


92          THOMAS   JEFFEESO^ 

the  Gulf  Stream  by  taking  a  seat  on  an 

iceberg. 

George  Washington's  own  personal 
brand  of  austere  dignity  is  conceded  to 
have  been  the  most  overpowering  thing 
of  the  kind  ever  seen  on  this  continent. 
The  story  goes  that  Gouverneur  Morris, 
upon  a  wager  with  Hamilton,  once  dared 
to  lay  his  hand  familiarly  upon  Wash 
ington's  shoulder, — once  and  only  once. 
Morris  shivered  and  shook  as  he  fell 
back  in  disorder  before  the  cold,  sur 
prised  stare  of  the  Washington  eye. 
Genet, —  one  instinctively  pities  Genet. 
He  came  hot,  panting,  and  enthusiastic 
into  the  presidential  presence  ;  and  a 
frost  smote  him  and  withered  him.  The 
sudden  pain  was  more  than  the  young 
Frenchman  could  bear,  and  his  cries 
scandalised  the  presidential  court.  Once 
upon  a  time  another  young  man  from 
France,  bubbling  over  with  republican 
enthusiasm,  had  come  to  visit  the  great 
Washington  ;  and  the  great  Washington 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  93 
had  not  been  quite  so  cold  as  this.  Now 
it  was  all  different,  and  Genet  could  not 
be  made  to  understand  the  change  at  all. 
He  lost  temper,  used  language  diplomacy 
condemned,  did  things  neutrality  could 
not  permit,  and  behaved  so  naturally 
(and  therefore  so  imprudently)  that 
even  Jefferson  had  to  use  the  rod  on  his 
indignant  back.  France  agreed  to  recall 
him ;  and  Genet,  perhaps  afraid  to  go, 
married  Governor  Clinton's  daughter, 
and  settled  in  New  York. 

In  spite  of  Washington's  earnest  re 
quest  that  he  would  remain  in  the  cab 
inet,  Mr.  Jefferson  resigned  at  the  end 
of  1794.  Back  to  his  mountain  home  he 
hurried,  declaring  that  he  was  done  with 
public  life  forever.  Henceforth  he  would 
find  happiness  in  his  books,  his  farms,  his 
family. 

The  British  debt  had  swept  away  huge 
slices  of  his  land,  but  he  still  owned  ten 
thousand  acres.  In  his  absence  the 
property  had  suffered,  and  was  now  in  a 


94  THOMAS  JEFFEBSON 
general  state  of  dilapidation.  Shunning 
politics  and  reading  but  one  newspaper, 
he  plunged  into  the  luxuries  of  farming, 
gardening,  and  house  -  building.  His 
travels  in  Europe  had  given  him  many 
new  ideas,  and  he  was  eager  to  indulge 
his  taste  for  experiment.  Some  portions 
of  his  mansion  were  torn  down  to  make 
way  for  more  artistic  and  more  expen 
sive  designs.  The  gardens  and  parks  of 
the  Old  "World  had  excited  his  admira 
tion,  hence  other  touches  had  to  be 
given  to  gardens  and  grounds  at  Monti- 
cello.  European  agriculture  had  ap 
pealed  to  his  love  of  orderly  progress : 
hence  his  farms  had  to  be  divided  anew, 
fruit-tree  hedges  run  along  the  divid 
ing  lines,  the  crops  and  the  method  of 
planting  changed.  Thus,  in  the  midst 
of  his  debts,  Mr.  Jefferson  mapped  out 
pleasant  occupations,  which  added 
greatly  to  the  beauty  of  his  estate  and 
to  the  ugliness  of  his  financial  situation. 
On  the  Eivanna  he  had  built  a  flour- 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  95 
mill,  which  cost  him  thirty  thousand 
dollars ;  and  here  his  wheat,  and  that 
of  his  neighbours,  was  ground.  He  had 
set  up  a  small  factory,  in  which  the 
wool  crop  was  made  into  cloth.  Black 
smith  shops  on  the  place  produced  nails 
as  well  as  other  farm  supplies,  the  sur 
plus  being  sold  at  a  fair  profit. 

There  was  live  stock  of  the  usual  sort 
in  plenty ;  the  farms  were  provisioned 
on  home-raised  meat  ;  there  were  fruits, 
melons,  vegetables,  milk,  butter,  mutton, 
beef,  and  pork  in  abundance, — plenty  to 
eat  and  plenty  to  wear,  good  houses  to 
live  in,  fuel  to  burn,  wine  to  drink,  to 
bacco  to  chew  or  smoke.  But  cash  was 
scarce  at  Monti  cello,  as  it  seems  to  have 
been  at  most  of  the  proud,  feudal  homes 
of  the  Old  South.  Virginia  farmers,  as 
a  rule,  did  not  keep  books  very  care 
fully.  Allowance  was  not  made  for  the 
wear  and  tear  of  land,  nor  for  slave 
labour.  Hence  capital  might  be  farmed 
away,  while  the  figures  proved  a  profit. 


96          THOMAS   JEFFERSON 

Book-keeping  might  say  success,  while 
facts  proclaimed  bankruptcy. 

Mr.  Jefferson  was  an  example  of  the 
rule.  He  meandered  along  composedly 
with  his  expensive  mansion,  his  unlim 
ited  hospitality,  his  experimental  plant 
ing,  his  extravagant  household  establish 
ment,  believing  in  his  heart  of  hearts 
that  he  was  teaching  an  object-lesson 
hugely  beneficial  to  agriculture ;  yet 
nothing  is  more  obvious  than  that  he 
was  laying  up  wrath  against  the  day  of 
wrath,  consuming  his  capital  as  well  as 
his  revenue,  and  allowing  the  thunder 
cloud  of  his  debts  to  darken  and  grow, 
with  never  a  fear  of  the  storm  to  come. 
Like  his  great  rival,  Hamilton,  he  could 
enrich  a  nation  and  stay  poor.  Having 
made  it  a  rule,  that  while  serving  his 
country,  he  would  engage  in  no  efforts 
to  better  his  fortune,  his  country  gained 
and  his  fortune  lost  the  undivided 
energies  of  the  best  years  of  his  life. 

While  Mr.  Jefferson's  fondness  for  ex- 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  97 
periment  and  his  faith  in  novelties 
caused  him  to  be  ridiculed  as  visionary 
and  impracticable,  his  passion  for  prog 
ress  conferred  lasting  benefit  on  man 
kind,  even  in  the  domain  of  the  severely 
practical.  He  introduced  the  heavy  up 
land  rice  into  Georgia  and  South  Caro 
lina,  the  olive  into  Georgia  and  Florida. 
He  imported  the  merino  sheep  to  im 
prove  the  native  breed.  He  invented  a 
folding  and  a  revolving  chair,  and  an 
extension  top  for  the  carriage.  He  in 
troduced  improved  machinery  and  pro 
gressive  methods.  European  melons, 
nuts,  vines,  he  imported  and  scattered 
broadcast  among  his  friends.  When  in 
France,  he  had  taken  a  medal  awarded 
by  the  Eoyal  Agricultural  Society  of 
the  Seine  for  an  improved  plough :  the 
model  was  to  be  seen  in  Paris  so  late 
as  1853. 

Mr.  Jefferson  did  not  long  remain 
wholly  indifferent  to  public  affairs. 
His  letters  began  to  flow  after  a  while, 


98          THOMAS   JEFFEBSO^ 

and  faithful  followers  were  not  denied 
a  word  of  guidance  from  the  chief. 
On  every  important  issue,  as  it  arose, 
Mr.  Jefferson  found  time  to  express 
written  opinion,  despite  his  keen  in 
terest  in  his  "  pease,  lucerne,  and  po 
tatoes."  The  excise  law  which  had 
roused  rebellion  in  Pennsylvania  was 
an  "infernal  one.7'  The  Jay  Treaty 
was  a  pusillanimous  surrender  of  Amer 
ican  rights  to  English  greed  and  arro 
gance.  The  "  ruonocrats, "  who  had 
kindled  his  ire  when  he  first  entered 
Washington's  cabinet,  were  still  ac 
tively  at  work,  Hamilton  at  their  head, 
striving  to  put  the  United  States  under 
the  heels  of  Great  Britain.  These  wicked 
men  had  taken  possession  of  President 
Washington,  and  were  using  him  for 
unholy  purposes.  Such  plots,  such 
"monocrats,"  deserved  unmeasured  de 
nunciation  ;  and  Jefferson  denounced 
them  accordingly. 

Thus  opposition  to  Federalism    took 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  99 
political  shape  under  the  hands  of  the 
serene  gardener  who  bent  affectionately 
over  asparagus  beds,  and  who  noted 
three  times  a  day  how  the  wind  was 
blowing. 

Not  a  man  who  craved  active  leader 
ship,  not  sufficiently  consumed  by  "  di 
vine  indignation"  to  become  a  zealot 
capable  of  consecrating  life,  peace,  and 
fortune  to  a  mission,  Mr.  Jefferson  was 
one  of  the  most  earnest,  sincere,  unself 
ish  of  statesmen.  With  infinite  scorn  he 
scouted  the  idea  that  God  had  given  to 
any  class  of  human  beings  a  monopoly 
of  worth.  Class  legislation,  whether  in 
Europe  or  America,  he  abhorred.  He 
believed  in  the  people,  loved  them, 
trusted  them,  and  relied  upon  the  masses 
as  the  safest  repositories  of  power.  The 
governing  few  were  the  same  every 
where  —  greedy,  corrupt,  tyrannical. 
Let  government  rest  upon  the  masses, 
educate  the  masses,  throw  open  the  doors 
of  opportunity  to  the  masses,  grant  no 


100  THOMAS  JEFFEBSON 
special  privileges,  legislate  for  no  class, 
mete  out  equal  and  exact  justice  to  all, 
steer  clear  of  Old  World  abuses,  guard 
well  the  reserved  rights  of  the  people, 
watch  jealously  the  encroachments  of 
power.  He  believed  in  "free  trade  with 
all  the  nations  of  the  world ? '  ;  in  a  na 
tional  currency  created  and  controlled 
by  the  nation,  and  not  by  the  banks ; 
in  economy  of  administration,  so  that 
there  should  be  no  public  debt.  He 
was  in  principle  opposed  to  militarism 
and  to  imperialism.  He  believed  that 
a  nation's  true  prosperity  could  best  be 
reached  by  the  steady  development  in 
cident  to  peace  and  to  friendly  rela 
tions  with  all  the  nations  of  the  earth. 
So  democratic  that  he  disliked  all  titles, 
even  those  of  Mister  and  Esquire,  his 
cardinal  doctrine  was  "  equal  and  exact 
justice  to  all  men"  ;  and  he  favoured 
a  progressive  tax  on  property  in  order 
that  excessive  accumulations  might  be 
discouraged. 


THOMAS  'J  EJ^SBSCM        iOi 

Writing  from  France  to  Mr.  Madison, 
lie  said  that  "the  earth  belongs  in  usu 
fruct  to  the  living, ' '  and  that  < '  the  dead 
have  no  dominion  over  it."  He  added 
that  the  debts  of  one  generation  should 
not  bind  another. 

Technically,  this  is  known  as  "  dan 
gerous  ground,"  ours  being  a  system 
which  is  overshadowed  and  benumbed 
by  the  Past. 

So  jealously  did  he  watch  the  en 
croachment  of  government  that  he 
rather  sympathised  with  popular  insur 
rections,  holding  that  they  were  neces 
sary  to  the  health  of  society,  as  the 
occasional  storm  was  to  the  purity  of 
the  atmosphere.  At  what  point  a  re 
bellion  might  cease  to  be  healthy,  he 
failed  to  state.  As  with  his  storm,  the 
classification  could  only  be  made  after 
the  disturbance  was  over. 

With  these  intense  radical  opinions 
it  is  not  surprising  that  so  able  a  man  as 
Mr.  Jefferson  should  see  a  party  rally- 


102  THOMAS-  JEFFEBSON 
ing  around  him.  Profoundly  attached 
to  the  cause  of  the  common  people,  his 
own  spirit  moved  over  the  great  deep 
of  American  politics,  inspiring  the 
masses  with  his  own  faith  and  aspira 
tions. 

When  the  presidential  election  of 
1796  came  on,  Jefferson,  who  had  been 
put  in  nomination  by  the  Republican 
caucus  at  Philadelphia,  who  had  not 
stirred  from  Monticello  nor  taken  part 
in  the  campaign,  missed  the  election 
by  a  scratch.  Under  the  old  system  of 
presidential  elections  the  candidate  who 
received  the  highest  number  of  electoral 
votes  became  president,  and  he  who 
received  the  next  highest  became  vice- 
president.  Thus  Adams  and  Jefferson 
were  each  candidate  for  the  highest 
office ;  and  Jefferson,  though  beaten  for 
the  first  place,  secured  the  second.  A 
change  of  two  votes  from  Adams  to 
himself  would  have  made  him  the  suc 
cessor  of  Washington.  This  brilliant 


THOMAS   JEFFEKSON        103 

result  of  the  campaign  was  largely  due 
to  the  masterly  management  by  which 
New  York  had  been  wrested  from  Hamil 
ton  and  Schuyler  by  Aaron  Burr. 


X. 

ONE  of  the  things  which  reconciled 
Mr.  Jefferson  to  a  return  to  office  was 
the  salary.  His  affairs  had  become  so 
embarrassed  that  ready  money  was  in 
great  demand  with  him.  Besides,  the 
duties  of  the  vice-presidency  were  not 
exacting.  They  would  claim  but  a 
small  part  of  each  year,  and  the  re 
mainder  he  could  spend  at  Monticello. 

In  the  course  of  his  studies,  which 
ranged  far  and  wide,  he  had  given 
much  attention  to  parliamentary  law 
and  had  made  copious  notes,  according 
to  his  usual  rule.  Row  that  he  was 
presiding  officer  of  the  Senate,  this 
knowledge  became  specially  useful  to 
him.  To  give  others  the  benefit  of  his 
studies  of  the  subject,  he  published  his 
Manual  of  Parliamentary  Practice,  which 
became  a  guide-book  in  the  dark  and 
dismal  swamp  called  Parliamentary  Law. 

The  quarrels  with  France   were  the 


THOMAS  JEFFEESON  105 
source  of  tribulation  under  the  admin 
istration  of  Mr.  Adams.  Our  sister  Ee- 
public  had  been  treated  so  much  like  an 
hereditary  enemy,  had  been  made  so 
angry  by  the  conduct  of  Gouverneur 
Morris,  by  the  Jay  Treaty,  and  by  the 
Neutrality  Proclamation,  that  it  became 
belligerent,  began  to  seize  our  merchant 
vessels,  and  practically  drove  our  minis 
ter,  Pinckney,  out  of  the  country. 
Hamilton  and  most  of  the  Federalists 
clamoured  for  war.  Adams  did  not  love 
Hamilton,  and  persisted  in  the  policy 
of  peace.  A  grand  embassy,  composed 
of  Pinckney,  Marshall,  and  Gerry,  was 
sent  to  negotiate.  When  these  special 
envoys  arrived  in  Paris,  they  found  a 
corrupt  Directory  in  possession  of  the 
government,  and  the  corrupt  Talleyrand 
in  possession  of  the  Directory.  Did  the 
Americans  want  something  ?  Then  they 
must  pay  for  it.  By  this  simple  rule 
Talleyrand  was  doing  business,  and  to 
make  an  exception  here  would  breed 


106  THOMAS  JEFFEBSON 
trouble  yonder.  The  Americans  must 
make  the  government  a  loan  and  Tal 
leyrand  a  gift.  How  much  for  the 
loan  ?  Apparently,  five  million  dollars. 
How  much  for  Talleyrand?  Two  hun 
dred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  in  gold. 
"Not  a  sixpence!"  replied  the  dumb 
founded  American  envoys.  "  Millions 
for  defence,  but  not  a  cent  for  tribute  ! ' 7 
In  spite  of  this  noble  sentiment  the 
indignant  ministers  frnmd  themselves 
completely  balked, —  standing  on  the 
wrong  side  of  inexorable  conditions. 
They  remonstrated,  protested,  spun  out 
lengthy  discourse,  all  to  no  purpose. 
Talleyrand  wined  and  dined  Gerry  in 
formally  :  Gerry  wined  and  dined  Tal 
leyrand  informally.  No  farther  could 
the  business  travel.  Thus  it  was  for 
six  months,  when  Pinckney  and  Marshall 
sailed  homeward,  leaving  Gerry  in 
Paris.  Disclosures  following  the  return 
of  the  envoys,  indignation  flamed  out 
all  over  the  Union.  Pinckney  and  Mar- 


THOMAS  JEFFEESON  107 
shall  were  toasted  as  heroes,  Gerry  uni 
versally  damned.  The  "X.  Y.  Z." 
correspondence,  as  it  was  called,  drove 
the  country  into  a  martial  fever.  Be 
fore  long  Talleyrand  let  it  be  known 
that  peace  could  be  made  without  gold. 
Gerry  came  to  America,  sought  out  the 
president  at  Quincy,  had  a  private  in 
terview,  convinced  him  that  France 
wanted  peace,  and  the  attempt  was 
made.  It  succeeded,  and  the  war-cloud 
passed  away. 

It  was  while  the  country  was  wrought 
up  over  these  questions  that  the  Fed 
eralists  enacted  the  Alien  and  Sedition 
laws,  which  caused  Virginia  to  prepare 
herself  to  resist  the  encroachments  of 
the  central  government,  and  which 
called  forth  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky 
Eesolutions,  drafted  by  Madison  and 
Jefferson.  In  these  celebrated  Eesolu 
tions,  around  which  raged  such  hot  po 
litical  battles  afterward,  extreme  state- 
rights  were  proclaimed,  and  the  doctrine 
of  nullification  set  forth. 


108        THOMAS  JEFFERSON 

While  Mr.  Jefferson  gave  freest  ex 
pression  to  such  opinions  as  these,  he 
was  equally  forcible  in  condemning  se 
cession.  When  John  Taylor  suggested 
that  the  time  had  come  for  North  Caro 
lina  and  Virginia  to  walk  out  of  the 
Union,  he  was  met  by  Mr.  Jefferson's 
firm  protest  that  such  a  policy  would 
lead  to  the  breaking  up  of  the  Confed 
eracy  "into  their  simple  units." 

For  the  presidential  campaign  of  1800 
the  Federalists  renominated  Mr.  Adams, 
and  the  Republicans  Mr.  Jefferson.  The 
Federalists  were  beaten  by  eight  electoral 
votes. 

During  the  campaign,  Jefferson  was 
assailed  with  unsparing  and  unscrupu 
lous  violence.  He  was  an  atheist ;  he 
poisoned  the  minds  of  the  young  with 
heresy ;  he  was  the  father  of  mulatto 
children ;  he  had  robbed  the  widow 
and  orphans  of  a  dead  friend  of  fifty 
thousand  dollars ;  he  despised  mechan 
ics  5  was  an  enemy  to  the  Constitution, 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  109 
and  meant  to  subvert  it.  uMr.  Jeffer 
son's  Congo  Harem"  was  a  party  cry, 
and  u Dusky  Sally"  Henning's  brats 
were  reported  to  have  angular  faces  and 
sandy  hair.  But  Jefferson's  popularity 
kept  marching  on,  and  the  campaign 
liar  was  swept  far  out  to  oblivion. 


XL 

EACH  of  the  Republican  nominees, 
Jefferson  and  Burr,  had  received  the 
same  number  of  votes.  Under  the  old 
rule  there  was  no  election,  and  the 
choice  of  president  fell  to  the  House 
of  Representatives.  So  intense  was 
Federalist  hatred  of  Jefferson  that  they 
schemed  to  set  aside  the  will  of  the  peo 
ple,  and  to  make  Burr  the  president. 
Burr  himself  remained  at  Albany,  wrote 
a  brief,  positive  note,  denouncing  the 
intrigue ;  and  his  friends  in  Congress 
refused  to  make  the  pledges  which  Bay 
ard,  in  behalf  of  the  Federalists,  de 
manded. 

In  a  letter  to  his  daughter  Martha, 
bearing  date  January  4,  1801,  Mr.  Jef 
ferson  writes  :  i  c  The  Federalists  were 
confident  at  first  they  could  debauch 
Col.  B.  from  his  good  faith,  by  offering 
him  their  vote  to  be  president,  and  have 
seriously  proposed  it  to  him.  His  con- 


THOMAS  JEFFEKSON  111 
duct  has  been  honourable  and  decisive, 
and  greatly  embarrasses  them. ' ' 

This  favourable  opinion  Mr.  Jefferson 
soon  dropped,  but  just  why  and  when 
cannot  be  shown. 

If  Burr  cherished  any  secret  hopes 
that  the  presidency  might  be  thrust 
upon  him,  they  were  soon  dashed  to  the 
ground.  Hamilton  could  not  bear  the 
idea  that  his  rival  should  win  the  prize, 
made  desperate  efforts  to  pull  away  from 
Burr  the  Federalist  support,  wrote  vio 
lently  abusive  letters  against  him,  and 
thus,  perhaps,  took  the  first  long  step 
toward  the  duelling  ground  of  Weehaw- 
ken.  Gouverneur  Morris  went  with 
Hamilton,  throwing  his  influence  to 
Jefferson ;  and,  when  Jefferson's  friends 
(without  his  knowledge)  made  the 
pledges  Bayard  demanded,  Jefferson  re 
ceived  the  necessary  votes  in  the  House. 

Mr.  Adams  took  his  defeat  so  much 
to  heart  that  he  left  Washington  before 
the  inauguration.  On  foot  and  attended 


112        THOMAS   JEFFERSON 

informally  by  a  few  friends,  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  went  to  the  Capitol,  and  read  his 
noble  first  Inaugural  Address. 

Under  Washington's  administration, 
where  all  was  new  and  experimental, 
many  royal  forms  and  ceremonies  had 
been  followed.  Washington  was  some 
thing  of  a  "  My  Lord ' '  himself ;  and  the 
rich  city  people  of  New  York  and  Phila 
delphia  were  painfully  committed  to 
the  effort  to  be  aristocratic.  The  pres 
idential  inauguration  was  patterned 
after  a  royal  coronation.  Congress  was 
opened  as  an  English  king  would  open 
Parliament,  court  levees  were  held  on 
stated  days,  and  society  adopted  for 
midable  rules  of  precedence. 

With  good-humoured  contempt,  Mr. 
Jefferson  brushed  all  this  rubbish  aside. 
No  six-horse  coach,  with  blare  of 
trumpet,  boom  of  cannon,  and  crash  of 
military  bands,  escorted  him  back  and 
forth.  Congress  was  opened  by  a  written 
message  handed  in  by  a  secretary,  and 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  113 
levees  were  abolished.  During  Wash 
ington's  administration  our  aristocratic 
minister  at  Paris,  Gouverneur  Morris, 
had  startled  the  French  republicans  by 
reference  to  what  he  called  ma  cour. 
There  was  no  "my  court"  nonsense 
about  Jefferson, —  no  undemocratic  rules 
of  precedence,  no  barriers  over  which 
one  class  of  men  and  women  said  to 
another,  "We  are  better  than  you." 
All  came  as  equals,  or  not  at  all.  The 
British  minister  was  shocked  at  being 
received  just  as  Jefferson  would  have 
received  a  Virginia  farmer,  and  wrote 
indignant  stuff  to  London  about  it. 
Apparently,  the  miserably  vain  minister, 
Mr.  Merry,  would  have  been  glad  to 
see  the  two  nations  go  to  war  because 
Jefferson  wore  slippers  about  the  house, 
and  because  he  took  Mrs.  Madison  in  to 
dinner  instead  of  Mrs.  Merry.  Jefferson 
only  laughed,  remembering,  maybe, 
how  he  had  been  insulted  in  London. 
Washington  City  consisted  at  this 


114        THOMAS   JEFFERSON 

time  chiefly  of  a  large  diagram  on 
paper.  There  was  a  long  streak  of 
mnd  called  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  with 
the  unfinished  mansion  at  one  end  and 
the  incomplete  Capitol  at  the  other,  and 
a  few  shackly  houses  strewed  along  on 
each  side.  Living  was  expensive,  and 
the  expense  brought  no  comfort.  The 
executive  mansion,  as  kept  by  Mr.  Jeffer 
son,  became  a  free  hotel  of  the  first  class, 
the  only  first-class  hotel  in  the  town ; 
and  its  run  of  custom  was  the  despair 
of  inferior  places.  He  kept  a  dozen  ser 
vants,  including  French  cooks,  often 
spent  fifty  dollars  a  day  at  the  George 
town  market,  kept  a  wagon  busy  hauling 
the  more  substantial  supplies  from 
Monticello,  and  refreshed  his  guests 
with  the  best  French  wine  they  had 
ever  tippled.  His  wine  bill  alone  was 
twenty-seven  hundred  dollars  a  year. 
He  kept  the  finest  horses,  his  carriage 
team  costing  sixteen  hundred  dollars. 
The  stable  expenses  of  this  simple 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  115 
democrat  were  eight  hundred  dollars 
a  year.  Free  and  easy,  generous  and 
frank,  liberal  and  genial,  presidential 
hospitality  as  shown  by  Jefferson  was 
such  as  had  not  been  practised  before, 
and  was  never  seen  in  its  full  blossom 
afterwards. 

No  respectable,  decently  clad  Ameri 
can  citizen  needed  to  doubt  that  he 
could  dine  with  his  chief  magistrate. 
The  only  danger  was  that  a  late  arrival 
might  find  no  vacant  chair.  Merry, 
the  English  minister,  made  it  a  matter 
of  formal  complaint  to  his  government 
that  in  the  scramble  for  seats  at  Jeffer 
son's  table  a  mere  Congressman  had 
rushed  in  where  angels  fear  to  tread, 
and  had  seized  the  chair  which  Merry 
had  mentally  appropriated  to  himself. 

On  Mr.  Jefferson's  return  from  France 
he  had  created  a  ripple  of  excitement 
in  New  York  society  circles  by  his 
French  dress,  his  red  breeches  particu 
larly  causing  pain  and  consternation. 


116        THOMAS   JEFFERSON 

By  the  time  he  became  president,  he  had 

grown  so  indifferent  to   clothes  that  a 

sight  of  him  would  have  been  refreshing 

to  such   a  man  as  "old   Frederick   of 

Prussia." 

Senator  William  Maclay,  a  Jeffer- 
sonian  senator  from  Pennsylvania,  thus 
describes  his  chief :  — 

"Jefferson  is  a  slender  man,  has 
rather  the  air  of  stiffness  in  his  manner. 
His  clothes  seem  too  small  for  him. 
He  sits  in  a  lounging  manner,  on  one 
hip  commonly,  and  with  one  of  his 
shoulders  elevated  much  above  the 
other.  His  face  has  a  sunny  aspect. 
His  whole  figure  has  a  loose,  shackling 
air.  He  had  a  rambling,  vacant  look, 
and  nothing  of  that  firm,  collected 
deportment  which  I  expected.  .  .  .  He 
spoke  almost  without  ceasing,  .  .  .  his 
discourse  .  .  .  was  loose  and  rambling ; 
and  yet  he  scattered  information  wher 
ever  he  went." 

Augustus  Foster,  secretary  of  the 
British  legation,  wrote  :  — 


THOMAS   JEFFEBSON        117 

"He  was  a  tall  man,  with  a  very  red, 
freckled  face  and  grey,  neglected  hair. 
.  .  .  He  wore  a  blue  coat,  a  thick,  grey- 
coloured,  hairy  waistcoat,  with  a  red 
under- waistcoat  lapped  over  it,  green 
velveteen  breeches  with  pearl  buttons, 
and  slippers  down  at  the  heels,  his 
appearance  being  very  much  like  that 
of  a  tall,  large-boned  farmer.7' 

Senator  Plumer  wrote  :  — 

"He  was  dressed  in  an  old  brown 
coat,  red  waistcoat,  old  corduroy  small 
clothes,  much-soiled  woollen  hose,  and 
slippers  without  heels." 

A  hostile  newspaper  of  the  time,  the 
Evening  Post,  testifies  that  he  made  a 
habit  of  appearing  in  public  "dressed 
in  long  boots  with  tops  turned  down 
about  the  ankles,  like  a  Virginia  buck ; 
overalls  of  corduroy,  faded,  by  frequent 
immersions  in  soap-suds,  from  yellow  to 
a  dull  white  ;  a  red,  single-breasted  waist 
coat,  a  light  brown  coat  with  brass 
buttons,  both  coat  and  waistcoat  quite 


118        THOMAS   JEFFEBSON 
threadbare ;     liuen    very     considerably 
soiled ;   hair   uncombed  and   beard   un 
shaven.  ? ' 

The  Evening  Post  also  complained 
that  * ( he  makes  it  a  point,  when  he  has 
occasion  to  visit  the  Capitol  to  meet  the 
representatives  of  the  nation  011  public 
business,  to  go  on  a  single  horse,  which 
he  leads  into  the  shed  and  hitches  to  a 
peg." 

Negligent  in  dress,  easy  of  access,  in 
different  to  forms  and  ceremonies,  loose 
and  rambling  in  casual  conversation, 
lolling  on  one  hip  with  one  shoulder 
higher  than  the  other,  this  freckled- 
faced  philosopher  was  a  rare  manager 
of  men,  and  one  of  the  astutest  politi 
cians  this  country  has  ever  known.  He 
chose  a  cabinet  of  the  strongest  men  — 
men  of  education  and  experience,  men 
who  were  personally  and  politically  his 
friends  ;  and  during  his  presidency  there 
were  no  cabinet  feuds.  Madison,  Gal- 
latin,  Lincoln,  Dearborn,  Smith,  were 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  119 
all  kept  working  harmoniously  together  j 
and  Congress  he  manipulated  to  per 
fection. 

Justly  offended  with  Mr.  Adams  for 
having  crowded  life  appointments  into 
the  last  hours  of  his  term,  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  treated  these  "  midnight  appoint 
ments  ' '  as  nullities  ;  and  the  Judiciary 
Act,  by  which  new  federal  courts, 
judges,  marshals,  etc.,  were  created,  was 
repealed.  A  story  told  by  partisans 
of  Jefferson  and  denied  by  partisans 
of  Marshall  represents  the  great  chief 
justice,  then  acting  Secretary  of  State, 
as  labouring  away  far  into  the  night 
of  March  3,  1800,  signing  commissions 
for  Federalists,  and  only  stopping  his 
work  when  Levi  Lincoln,  with  Jeffer 
son's  watch  in  hand,  walked  into  the 
office  at  midnight,  and  called  a  halt. 

"Is  he  honest!  Is  he  capable?  Is 
he  faithful  to  the  Constitution  ? > '  was 
the  test  which  Mr.  Jefferson  declared 
he  would  use  on  applicants  for  office. 


120        THOMAS   JEFFEESOX 

Yet,  as  the  Federalists  had  totally  ex 
cluded  Jefferson's  friends  from  the 
administration,  it  was  only  fair  that 
Eepublicans  should  now  get  a  share. 

In  his  own  quiet,  leisurely  way,  Mr. 
Jefferson  was  a  good  deal  of  a  partisan. 
Eepublicans  got  all  the  new  appoint 
ments,  and  Federalists  lost  many  of  the 
old.  "Few  die,  and  none  resign,"  is  a 
briefer  version  of  one  of  Jefferson's 
complaints  against  the  office- holding 
Federalists  ;  but  in  the  end  he  managed 
to  make  a  pretty  general  change  in  the 
politics  of  the  administration.  Many 
Federalists  who  were  reluctant  to  get  out 
by  death,  resignation,  or  removal,  stayed 
in  by  professing  a  change  of  heart ;  for  it 
began  to  be  plain  enough  that  the  Fed 
eralist  party  was  doomed.  Federalism 
was  at  war  with  itself,  Washington  was 
dead,  Hamilton  was  at  feud  with  Adams, 
Jefferson  was  conciliating  everybody,  the 
country  was  prospering,  and  Eepubli- 
canism  had  evidently  come  to  stay. 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  121 
Hamilton  could  rail  at  Jefferson  from 
afar  off.  His  shafts  did  not  reach  the 
mark. 

The  repeal  of  the  Judiciary  Act  had 
excited  so  much  antagonism  that  Mr. 
Jefferson,  intensely  as  he  disliked  the 
federal  judiciary,  did  not  venture  to 
proceed  farther  on  that  line,  but  adopted 
another.  Impeachments  might  answer 
the  purpose.  Therefore  Pickering,  a 
district  court  judge,  was  arraigned, 
found  guilty,  and  removed  from  office. 
He  was  probably  insane,  and  his  official 
conduct  could  not  be  defended ;  but 
when  John  Eandolph  of  Eoanoke,  at 
Jefferson's  instigation,  brought  in  arti 
cles  of  impeachment  against  Chase  of 
Maryland,  a  justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  the  Federal 
ists  felt  that  Marshall  himself  might 
come  next,  and  they  rallied  to  his  sup 
port  with  the  strongest  array  of  counsel 
the  bar  could  furnish.  In  a  legal  contest 
and  pitted  against  the  best  lawyers  in  the 


122  THOMAS  JEFFERSON 
land,  Bandolph  of  Roaiioke  was  out  of 
his  element,  especially  when  the  pre 
siding  officer  of  the  court  was  Aaron 
Burr.  The  prosecution  failed  miser 
ably.  Chase  came  forth  in  triumph, 
the  Federalists  duly  jubilating.  Hence 
forth  John  Marshall  was  safe.  Jeffer 
son  could  do  no  more  than  wring  his 
hands  and  tear  his  robe  as  centralism 
marched  steadily  on  behind  the  federal 
judges.  Previous  to  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution  he  had  admitted  the  ne 
cessity  of  a  Supreme  Court  vested  with 
the  power  to  set  aside  unconstitutional 
laws  5  but,  when  Washington  and  Adams 
had  filled  the  bench  with  Federalists, 
and  the  decisions  had  proved  to  be  as 
partisan  as  the  judges,  he  awoke,  with 
something  akin  to  terror,  to  the  power 
of  such  a  tribunal.  In  office  for  life, 
placed  beyond  the  reach  of  the  people, 
tempted  by  human  love  of  supremacy 
to  enlarge  the  limits  of  their  empire, 
where  would  the  federal  judiciary  stop  ! 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  123 
With  the  vision  of  a  prophet,  he  saw 
this  body  of  sappers  and  miners  advanc 
ing  with  resistless  steps,  sapping  the 
foundations  of  republican  institutions. 
So  vividly  did  he  describe  the  perils  of 
the  future  that  we  can  believe  he  almost 
realised  the  day  when  federal  judges 
would  operate  railways  by  a  decree, 
street- cars  by  injunction,  and  use  a  mail- 
bag  and  the  United  States  army  to  quell 
a  local  strike. 

During  this  first  term  of  Mr.  Jefferson 
the  internal  taxes  were  abolished,  the 
military  and  naval  establishment  re 
duced,  and  the  expenses  of  administra 
tion  economised.  Gallatin  began  to  pay 
off  the  public  debt,  and  reduced  it  from 
eighty-three  to  forty-five  millions  of 
dollars.  The  repeal  of  the  direct  and 
excise  taxes  cut  off  a  million  and  a 
half  from  the  national  revenue,  but  the 
income  from  customs  duties  increased 
so  rapidly  that  in  1808  they  stood  at 
sixteen  million  dollars. 


124        THOMAS   JEFFEBSON 

True  to  the  idea  lie  had  advanced 
when  foreign  minister,  Mr.  Jefferson 
made  war  upon  the  Barbary  States  in 
the  interest  of  free  commerce.  Partly 
by  gallant  fighting,  partly  by  negotia 
tion,  the  corsairs  were  brought  to  terms. 
Mr.  Jefferson's  Indian  policy  was 
humane  and  statesmanlike.  His  kind 
ness  of  feeling  for  the  red  man  dated  far 
back  to  the  time  when  he  had  listened 
to  the  friendly  chiefs  who  gathered  at 
his  father's  house  in  the  old  home  of 
Shadwell.  Holding  that  the  Indian 
title  to  the  lands  they  occupied  must  be 
respected,  he  insisted  that  the  red  men 
be  bought  out  and  not  shot  out.  To  the 
chiefs  who  came  to  Washington  to  con 
sult  the  Great  Father  he  made  paternal 
speeches,  containing  sage  counsel.  The 
essence  of  the  doctrine  was  that  the 
Indian  should  settle  down,  go  to  work, 
rely  on  industry  rather  than  sport,  re 
nounce  mean  whiskey,  and  fall  into  the 
ways  of  the  laborious  whites. 


THOMAS  JEFFEKSON  125 
An  original  expansionist,  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  had  encouraged  Western  pioneers, 
such  as  the  heroic  George  Eogers  Clarke, 
and  had  long  coveted  the  Spanish  pos 
sessions  in  America.  Therefore,  he  was 
profoundly  disturbed  when  in  1800 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  won  back  to 
France  the  empire  the  Bourbon  had 
lost,  and  planned  to  colonise  Louisiana. 
In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Livingston,  our  min 
ister  in  France,  Mr.  Jefferson  declared 
that  the  colonising  of  Louisiana  by 
France  would  lead  to  war,  that  the 
United  States  would  make  alliance  with 
England,  and  that  French  power  would 
sink  to  low-water  mark.  Napoleon, 
used  to  talk  of  this  kind,  paid  no  atten 
tion  to  it.  Then  Mr.  Jefferson  changed 
his  tone.  He  would  buy  New  Orleans 
and  West  Florida.  Napoleon  would 
not  sell.  Livingston  could  not  even  get 
Talleyrand  to  talk  about  it.  Napoleon's 
plans  of  colonisation  were  complete,  his 
ships  ready  to  sail,  when,  all  at  once,  a 


126  THOMAS  JEFFEKSON 
cloud  swept  over  his  dazzling  sky.  The 
Peace  of  Amiens  broken,  war  was  about 
to  convulse  Europe.  Again  England 
held  the  seas,  and  Louisiana  would  be  her 
first  prize.  To  escape  so  great  a  shame, 
Napoleon  had  but  one  resource — to 
throw  Louisiana  to  the  United  States. 
Quick  as  lightning,  French  policy  was 
reversed  ;  and  Livingston  was  stunned 
by  the  statement  that  Napoleon  would 
sell  all  Louisiana.  Jefferson  and  Living 
ston  had  been  hoping  against  hope  that 
New  Orleans  and  a  strip  of  Florida  could 
be  bought.  In  his  eagerness  and  his  dis 
tress,  Mr.  Jefferson  had  stooped  to  con 
ciliate  Talleyrand.  This  utterly  rotten 
minister  was  assured  that  the  American 
people  had  vindicated  him  from  the 
X.  Y.  Z.  scandal  by  retiring  from  office 
the  bad  men  who  had  accused  him ! 
Furthermore,  Mr.  Jefferson  had  asked 
Congress  for  a  special  fund  of  two  mill 
ion  dollars,  to  be  used  at  the  Presi 
dential  discretion.  English  newspapers 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  127 
had  chronicled  this  significant  fact.  It 
had  thus  come  to  Napoleon's  knowledge, 
and  Napoleon  knew  what  it  meant.  It 
meant  that  Talleyrand' s  ruffled  plumage 
was  to  be  smoothed  down  with  gold. 
Napoleon,  therefore,  employed  Barb6- 
Marbois. 

Monroe  had  been  sent  to  aid  Living 
ston  ;  but,  before  he  reached  Paris, 
Napoleon  had  already  instructed.  Mar- 
bois  to  sell.  Livingston  had  not  closed 
the  trade,  however  5  and  the  two  Ameri 
can  ministers,  acting  together  and  with 
out  definite  instructions,  assumed  the 
responsibility  of  paying  fifteen  million 
dollars  for  all  Louisiana,  thus  doubling 
the  Union  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen.  Mr. 
Jefferson  held  that  his  purchase  of 
Louisiana  was  an  act  outside  the  Con 
stitution,  and  wished  to  have  it  ratified 
by  constitutional  amendment ;  but  his 
friends  listened  coldly,  and  nothing  was 
done. 

It  was   during   the   prolonged   corre- 


128        THOMAS   JEFFEKSON 
spondence  on  the  Louisiana  question  that 
Mr.  Jefferson  foreshadowed  the  principle 
known  as  the  Monroe  Doctrine. 


XII. 

UNANIMOUSLY  renominated  by  the 
Bepublieans  in  1804,  Mr.  Jefferson  was 
almost  unanimously  re-elected.  In  the 
ory,  he  had  been  opposed  to  more  than 
one  term,  and  feared  that  the  office 
might  degenerate  into  a  life  tenure,  and 
afterward  become  hereditary.  When 
he  himself  became  president,  the  danger 
did  not  seem  so  great ;  and  a  second  term, 
he  thought,  would  be  harmless,  par 
ticularly  as  his  enemies  had  abused  him 
vilely  and  he  craved  a  vindication.  Had 
he  let  this  second  term  alone,  his  ene 
mies  would  have  had  far  less  strength 
in  their  case,  and  he  a  great  deal  more 
in  his.  The  second  term  came  near 
devouring  all  the  glory  of  the  first  $ 
and  there  was  some  of  the  sting  of  dis 
agreeable  truth  in  John  Bandolph's 
comparison  of  Jefferson's  first  and  second 
four  years  to  Pharaoh's  fat  and  lean 
kine. 


130        THOMAS   JEFFEKSON 

The  Louisiana  purchase  included  a 
large  portion  of  the  present  State  of 
Texas  ;  but,  as  the  United  States  did  not 
know  of  this  fact  and  Napoleon  refused 
to  reveal  it,  we  put  forward  no  claim. 
Livingston,  however,  convinced  himself 
that  West  Florida  was  included ;  and 
seems  to  have  brought  Jeiferson  over  to 
that  opinion.  Florida  had  not  been 
sold,  bought,  or  paid  for  ;  and  Spain,  as 
well  as  France,  denied  our  title.  Jeifer 
son  in  his  message  to  Congress  intimated 
that  we  would  fight,  other  matters  be 
sides  the  land  question  having  caused 
trouble  between  us  and  Spain.  In  dip 
lomatic  negotiations  the  president  offered 
to  buy  Florida,  and  Congress  was  asked 
to  furnish  two  millions  for  the  Presi 
dent's  use.  These  two  policies,  urged 
by  Jefferson  at  the  same  time  —  the  one 
public  and  the  other  secret  —  drove 
John  Eandolph  of  Eoanoke  into  opposi 
tion  ;  and  he  afterward  alluded  to  his 
former  chief  as  "  St.  Thomas  of  Canting- 
bury." 


THOMAS  JEFFEKSON  131 
With  his  habitual  diplomacy,  Mr. 
Jefferson  had  continued  to  treat  Aaron 
Burr  with  courteous  distinction  j  but, 
when  Burr  applied  to  him  for  a  foreign 
appointment,  he  refused  it.  Then  Burr 
turned  to  New  York,  made  the  race 
for  governor  as  independent  candidate 
against  the  Republican  nominee,  and 
was  defeated.  Hamilton  had  again 
waged  bitter  war  upon  him  j  and  Burr 
decided  that  the  Empire  State  was  not 
large  enough  for  both.  The  duel  fol 
lowed  5  and,  when  Hamilton  fell,  he 
dragged  Burr  down  with  him.  A  few 
months  of  his  vice- presidency  remained. 
Burr  continued  to  preside  over  the  Sen 
ate  with  matchless  grace  and  dignity, 
addressed  it  finally  in  the  farewell  speech 
which  moved  his  enemies  to  tears,  and 
wandered  off  into  the  tortious  windings 
of  political  intrigue. 

He  " sounded"  various  public  men  j 
spread  treasonable  wares  before  the  min 
isters  of  foreign  governments ;  formed 


132  THOMAS  JEFFERSON 
some  sort  of  alliance  with  General  Wil 
kinson  j  enlisted  numerous  adventurers  ; 
made  some  preparations  of  boats,  muni 
tions  of  war,  and  volunteers  ;  bought  up 
an  old  Spanish  land  grant  to  four  hun 
dred  thousand  acres  of  land ;  talked 
about  separating  the  Western  States  from 
the  Union  and  of  wresting  Mexico  from 
Spain.  Whatever  the  design,  it  was 
nipped  in  the  bud.  Burr  had  talked 
too  much  :  Jefferson  was  warned ;  the 
authorities  became  suspicious  j  Wilkin 
son  and  others  rushed  to  cover ;  the 
conspiracy  fell  to  pieces  $  and  Burr  was 
captured  in  Alabama,  as  he  was  trying 
to  escape  to  the  coast. 

By  the  time  Burr  was  brought  to 
Richmond  for  trial,  Jefferson  had  be 
come  imbittered  against  him.  There 
fore,  the  manner  in  which  the  presi 
dent's  political  enemies  received  the 
prisoner,  the  social  attentions  they  show 
ered  upon  him,  the  banquet  they  spread 
for  him,  and  at  which  the  prisoner, 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  133 
Burr,  sat  down  to  meat  with  his  judge, 
John  Marshall,  aroused  in  the  pacific 
soul  of  Jefferson  the  hottest  indignation. 
The  result  was  that  a  partisan  president 
pushed  the  prosecution,  and  a  partisan 
federal  judge  defended  the  accused.  As 
the  judge  had  the  conclusion  on  the 
president,  the  result  was  pleasant  for 
the  prisoner.  Jefferson  had  furnished 
the  prosecution  with  encouragement, 
advice,  legal  opinion,  and  urgent  ex 
hortation.  Unfortunately,  he  could  not 
furnish  evidence ;  and  evidence  was 
what  the  district  attorney  most  needed. 
The  case  against  Burr  broke  down, 
and  the  Federalists  again  celebrated  a 
triumph. 

Other  humiliations  crowded  upon  Mr. 
Jefferson  during  his  second  term.  Spain, 
upheld  by  France,  routed  him  in  the 
Florida  negotiations ;  but  the  English 
troubles  were  much  the  worst.  For  al 
leged  violations  of  neutrality  laws,  our 
vessels  were  seized,  and  made  lawful 


134        THOMAS   JEFFEBSON 

prize,  first  by  Great  Britain  and  then 
by  France.  The  Jay  Treaty  having 
expired  in  1800,  Mr.  Monroe  negotiated 
another  with  Great  Britain,  in  which 
there  was  nothing  said  against  England's 
practice  of  searching  American  ships 
for  alleged  deserters.  On  account  of 
this  and  other  objections,  Mr.  Jefferson 
rejected  the  treaty,  without  having  taken 
the  advice  of  the  Senate.  Great  Britain 
continued  to  capture  American  mer 
chantmen  by  the  score,  and  to  carry  off 
American  seamen  by  the  thousand. 
British  Orders  and  French  Decrees  dealt 
crushing  blows  to  our  maritime  prosper 
ity  ;  for  between  these  furiously  strug 
gling  combatants,  with  their  clashing 
Orders  and  Decrees,  neutrals  were 
caught  as  between  hammer  and  anvil. 

The  contemptuous  insolence  with 
which  Great  Britain  treated  us  during 
a  part  of  Jefferson's  administration  is 
something  to  make  the  cheek  hot  to 
this  day.  It  was  so  studied,  so  evidently 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSOK  135 
meant  to  insult,  so  brutally  disdainful 
of  American  courage  and  American 
right,  that  we  find  ourselves  asking, 
"How  could  our  people  have  borne 
it?"  After  all,  nations,  like  individ 
uals,  know  whom  to  kick ;  and  the 
nation  which  lets  all  the  world  believe 
that  it  will  not  fight  is  in  big  luck  if 
only  one  other  nation  of  all  the  world 
kicks  it. 

Just  outside  Hampton  Eoads  a  British 
warship  fired  upon  an  American  frigate, 
killing  and  wounding,  brought  her  to  a 
stop,  boarded  her,  searched  her,  carried 
off  four  of  her  crew. 

Mr.  Jefferson  had  neglected  the  navy, 
and  the  British  outrage  was  redressed 
by  a  presidential  proclamation. 

' l  Peace  is  our  passion, ' 7  said  Mr.  Jef 
ferson  5  and  this  particular  passion  was 
certainly  torn  to  a  tatter  in  our  dealings 
with  England.  Finally,  something  had 
to  be  done  ;  and  the  Embargo  was  laid, 
December,  1807.  American  ships  were 


136  THOMAS  JEFFEKSON 
kept  at  home,  American  commerce  sus 
pended,  American  products  cut  off  from 
the  markets  of  the  world.  The  Em 
bargo  may  have  injured  France,  it 
certainly  cut  off  much  revenue  from 
England ;  but  it  seemed  to  hurt  us  a 
great  deal  more  than  it  hurt  our  ene 
mies.  England  took  the  carrying  trade 
away  from  us,  and  George  Canning  jeered 
at  America' s  distress. 

The  Embargo  fell  most  heavily  on  the 
Southern  States,  perhaps  ;  but  the  fierc 
est  opposition  came  from  New  England. 
Jefferson  was  denounced  as  a  tool  of 
Bonaparte,  slavishly  obeying  orders, 
and  seeking  to  cripple  England  in  her 
war  with  France. 

To  his  Federalist  enemies,  Jefferson 
was  a  transparent  fraud,  a  corrupt, 
dangerous  man,  a  blind  zealot  who  was 
leading  his  country  to  ruin.  Massachu 
setts  and  Connecticut  passed  resolutions 
which  were  in  spirit  similar  to  the 
Virginia  and  Kentucky  Besolutions  of 


THOMAS  JEFFEESON        137 

1798-99.  Disunion  sentiment  spread, 
took  definite  form,  and  threatened  civil 
war.  Back  of  New  England,  egging  on 
her  conspirators,  stood  Great  Britain. 
The  Eepublican  leaders  became  alarmed, 
and  Jefferson  signed  an  act  repealing  the 
Embargo  March  1,  1809. 

Long  prior  to  the  Louisiana  purchase, 
Mr.  Jefferson  had  looked  forward  to  the 
day  when  the  Pacific  Ocean  would  be 
your  Western  boundary.  Under  Lewis 
and  Clarke,  he  carried  into  effect  an 
early  plan  of  his,  which  circumstances 
had  delayed.  The  West  was  explored, 
even  to  the  Columbia  Eiver ;  and  thus 
Jefferson's  foresight  helped  the  nation 
later  to  win  Oregon. 


XIII. 

FREED  from  the  "  splendid  'misery  " 
of  the  presidency,  Mr.  Jefferson  was 
glad  to  be  at  home  again.  A  model 
ruler  in  peaceful  times,  he  was  not  fitted 
by  nature  or  training  to  cope  with  tur 
bulent,  warlike  conditions ;  and  during 
the  last  months  of  his  term  he  had  seem 
ingly  abandoned  all  efforts  to  guide  Con 
gress.  The  entire  situation  was  carefully 
preserved  and  handed  over  to  Mr.  Madi 
son,  and  a  very  complicated  situation  it 
proved  to  be. 

But  Jefferson  was  out,  was  glad  to  be 
out,  and  in  his  delight  at  being  out  a 
very  large  percentage  of  his  fellow- citi 
zens  heartily  partook.  So  much  shaken 
was  his  authority  that  the  Senate  unani 
mously  rejected  the  last  appointment  he 
submitted, —  that  of  Mr.  Short  to  be  our 
representative  at  St.  Petersburg. 

Heavily  in  debt,  needing  to  borrow 
ten  thousand  dollars  to  ease  off  the  most 


THOMAS   JEFFEBSON        139 

pressing  demands,  worn  out  with  labour 
and  cut  to  the  quick  by  his  loss  of  popu 
larity,  Mr.  Jefferson  sought  Monticello 
as  a  storm-beaten  pilgrim  seeks  cosy  fire 
side  and  well-earned  rest. 

From  that  long  ago  night  when  he  and 
his  bride  had  ridden  horseback  through 
the  snow  up  the  winding  road  to  the 
one  finished  pavilion  at  Monticello,  and 
had  found  it  dark  and  deserted  (ser 
vants  asleep  in  distant  quarters),  and 
had  lit  up  the  house  with  their  happy 
voices,  what  a  far  cry  was  this !  The 
bride  —  ashes  many  a  year  ago ;  the 
children  —  most  of  them  dead  in  child 
hood  :  only  the  favourite  daughter, 
Martha,  now  lived ;  and  along  the  cor 
ridors  of  the  mansion  pattered  the  feet 
of  grandchildren. 

His  daughter  Martha  had  married 
Thomas  Mann  Eandolph  in  1790  $  and 
they,  with  their  children,  made  their 
home  at  Monticello.  Maria  Jefferson 
had  married  John  W.  Eppes  in  1797, 
and  had  died  in  1804,  leaving  one  child. 


140        THOMAS   JEFFEBSON 

With  public  life  Mr.  Jefferson  was 
now  done.  Out  of  the  hurly-burly,  he 
could  view  the  world  with  all  the  com 
posure  of  the  philosopher.  As  the  years 
passed  on,  the  troubles  of  his  second 
term  were  swallowed  up  in  the  glory  of 
his  earlier  achievments ;  and  his  popu 
larity  returned. 

His  was  the  tranquil  eminence  of  the 
soldier  who  had  fought  a  good  fight,  and 
whose  name  was  honoured  throughout 
the  world.  Liberty,  Progress,  and  Phi 
lanthropy  were  words  which  could  not 
be  uttered  anywhere  without  reminding 
men  of  Jefferson.  He  had  done  for 
humanity,  for  country,  for  universal 
improvement,  some  work  which  was 
supremely  good, — work  which  envy 
could  not  deny  nor  time  deface.  That 
he  was  proud  of  it,  as  every  conscientious 
workman  is  proud  of  his  work,  is  true. 

Yet  he  was  melancholy  rather  than 
elated.  He  had  failed  in  that  which  he 
had  had  most  at  heart,  and  he  knew  it. 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  141 
He  had  founded  a  party  to  overthrow 
Federalism ;  and,  while  the  Federalist 
party  had  fallen,  the  spirit  of  the  dying 
party  had  entered  his  own.  The  meas 
ures  he  most  abhorred  were  waxing 
stronger  every  day,  supported  and  fed 
by  those  who  in  lip  service  were  his 
devoted  followers.  The  consequences 
he  had  dreaded  were  becoming  visible 
all  about  him  j  and,  as  he  looked  to  the 
future,  he  was  saddened  by  what  he 
saw. 

But  for  his  debts,  Mr.  Jefferson's  after 
noon  of  life  would  have  been  almost 
cloudless.  Few  men  had  so  many 
sources  of  pleasure  as  he,  and  few  took 
so  much  pains  to  cultivate^them.  Kind- 
hearted,  sociable,  loving  men  and  loving 
nature,  he  was  never  without  occupa 
tion,  and  therefore  never  wrapped  in 
gloom.  He  loved  children  and  flowers  ; 
loved  to  plant  and  to  watch  the  growth 
of  seeds,  vines,  trees  ;  loved  books,  his 
correspondence,  and  his  scientific  studies. 


142  THOMAS  JEFFEKSON 
He  loved  to  have  his  friends  around  him, 
and  the  crowds  which  collected  around 
him  were  marvellous  to  behold.  Such 
hospitality  as  was  seen  at  Monticello 
made  even  Virginia  stare.  The  relative, 
friend,  acquaintance,  stranger,  native, 
foreigner,  tourist,  curiosity-seeker,  all 
came,  and  all  made  themselves  at  home. 
They  filled  the  house,  and  ate  out 
the  larder.  Husbands,  wives,  children, 
nurses,  servants,  horses,  dogs,  crowded 
up  the  hill,  and  took  possession  of  the 
premises.  Some  remained  by  the  day, 
others  by  the  week,  a  few  by  the  month. 
The  entire  produce  of  the  farm  was  not 
sufficient  to  feed  the  visitors,  their  ser 
vants  and  their  horses.  Frequently  the 
nuisance  became  unbearable ;  and  Mr. 
Jefferson  would  order  the  carriage,  catch 
up  the  family,  and  flee  to  Poplar  Forest 
in  Bedford  County,  eighty  odd  miles 
away. 

At  the  time  he  left  the  presidency  Mr. 
Jefferson    owned  property  worth  some 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  143 
two  hundred  thousand  dollars.  His 
debts  amounted  to  twenty  thousand  dol 
lars.  On  his  return  to  Monticello  the 
same  lavish  style  of  living  which  he  had 
long  indulged  was  adopted,  and  there 
fore  the  debts  rapidly  grew  until  they 
reached  one  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
A  security  debt  (twenty  thousand  dol 
lars)  which  he  paid  for  his  old  friend, 
Wilson  Cary  Nicholas,  added  very 
heavily  to  his  burden  ;  and  bankruptcy 
stared  him  in  the  face.  His  library  was 
sold  to  Congress  for  twenty- three  thou 
sand  dollars,  and  he  applied  to  the  Vir 
ginia  legislature  for  leave  to  sell  some 
of  his  land  by  lottery.  The  request  was 
granted,  but  the  lottery  failed.  His  dis 
tress  becoming  generally  known,  sub 
scriptions  were  taken  up  for  him  in 
several  large  cities,  and  seventeen  thou 
sand  dollars  realised.  Mr.  Jefferson, 
deeply  touched,  believed  that  his  many 
troubles  were  past  and  that  Monticello 
was  safe.  When  he  died,  the  debts 
swept  all  away. 


144        THOMAS   JEFFEBSOK 

In  1824  La  Fayette  came  to  Jeffer 
son's  door,  and  the  two  old  men  fell  into 
each  other's  arms,  friends  standing  a 
little  apart,  and  looking  on  with  moist 
ened  eyes.  Jefferson  suggested  that  Con 
gress  do  something  to  prove  national 
gratitude  to  the  illustrious  Frenchman, 
and  two  hundred  thousand  dollars,  be 
sides  land,  was  voted. 

The  last  great  public  work  of  Mr.  Jef 
ferson  was  the  founding  of  the  Univer 
sity  of  Virginia.  In  larger  books  than 
this  should  be  read  the  story  of  the  tact, 
patience,  wise  foresight,  and  tireless 
persistence  with  which  the  veteran  of 
human  progress  managed  a  sluggish 
state  government,  and  secured  for  Vir 
ginia  the  first  of  modern  colleges  this 
country  had  known.  A  pioneer  in  edu 
cation  as  in  everything  else,  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  imported  from  abroad  the  system 
which  allows  the  student  to  specialise 
his  studies  ;  and  between  all  religious 
and  political  creeds  he  established  per 
fect  equality  in  the  school. 


THOMAS  JEFFEBSON  145 
Mr.  Jefferson  did  not  become  physi 
cally  helpless  or  mentally  weak,  as  he 
had  dreaded.  To  the  last  he  was  genial, 
kind,  benevolent ;  to  the  last  patient, 
self-reliant,  clear-headed.  He  loved  to 
ride  his  fine  old  horse,  walk  in  his 
grounds,  chat  with  friends,  read  his  few 
remaining  books.  His  grandchildren 
trooped  about  him  fondly,  went  with 
him  in  his  strolls,  gathered  fruits  and 
flowers  for  him,  ran  races  on  the  lawn 
at  his  signal  and  for  his  rewards.  In 
the  evenings  they  studied  their  lessons 
at  his  knee,  his  daughter  Martha  and 
himself  overlooking  the  little  brood,  and 
thinking  the  thoughts  which  parents 
think  as  they  look  upon  the  young. 

His  end  came  on  very  gently.  The 
last  sickness  was  not  painful,  the  ap 
proach  to  the  valley  was  gradual  and 
easy.  He  looked  upon  death  as  release 
from  infirmity,  escape  from  weariness 
and  care.  The  final  sleep  passed  over 
him  like  a  benediction.  It  was  noon, 


146        THOMAS   JEFFEBSON 
July  4,  1826  j  and  his  thoughts  had  been 
upon  the  day.     He  had  wished  to  live 
to  see  it,  had  asked  during  the  night  of 
the  third  if  it  were  yet  the  Fourth. 

And  so,  with  his  latest  thought  on  the 
birthday  of  the  Bepublic,  the  great, 
warm  heart  grew  cold,  and  the  tired 
hands  found  rest. 


BIBLIOGEAPHY. 

In  addition  to  the  direct  authorities 
cited  below,  the  author  has  used,  and 
others  will  find  useful,  the  American 
Statesmen  series  of  biographies  (Boston : 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  edited  by 
John  T.  Morse,  Jr. )  ;  the  standard  his 
tories  of  the  United  States,  the  Ameri 
can  Commonwealths  series  of  State  histo 
ries  (Boston  :  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 
Edited  by  Horace  E.  Scudder),  The 
Story  of  the  Revolution  (Hon.  Henrj- 
Cabot  Lodge.  New  York,  1898  :  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons)  ;  also,  Moncure  D.  Con- 
way's  Life  of  Edmund  Randolph  (New 
York,  1888  :  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons), 
Hugh  A.  Garland's  Life  of  John  Ran 
dolph  (2  volumes)  (New  York,  1850 : 
D.  Appleton  &  Co.),  James  Parton's 
Life  and  Times  of  Aaron  Burr  (New 
York,  1858:  Mason  Brothers),  Gold- 
win  Smith' s  The  United  States :  An  Out 
line  of  Political  History  (New  York, 


148  BIBLIOGEAPHY 

1893:  Macmillan  &  Co.),  Henry  W. 
Elson's  Sidelights  on  American  History 
(New  York,  1900  :  The  Macmillan  Com 
pany)  ;  also,  Aaron  Burr  and  Thomas 
Paine  of  the  Beacon  Biographies  (Bos 
ton,  1899  :  Small,  Maynard  &  Co.). 

I.  Jefferson's  NOTES  ON  THE  STATE  OF 
VIRGINIA.     (London,  1787,  and  various 
later  American    editions. )     One  of  the 
most   instructive  books    any  American 
has  written. 

II.  MEMOIR,      CORRESPONDENCE,     AND 
MISCELLANIES,     from    the     papers    of 
Thomas  Jefferson.     Edited   by  Thomas 
Jefferson    Eandolph.       (Boston,     1830 : 
Gray  &  Bowen.)     Contains  the  memoir 
written  by  Mr.  Jefferson  in  his  old  age,  a 
large  number  of  his  letters,  and  memo 
randa  of  conversations,  cabinet  councils, 
etc.,  while  Mr.  Jefferson  was  Secretary 
of  State.     These  are  known  as  the  Ana. 

III.  THE  LIFE  OF  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 
By    Professor    George    Tucker    of    the 


BIBLIOGBAPHY  149 

University  of  Virginia.  (Philadelphia, 
1837  :  Carey,  Lea  &  Blanchard. )  Writ 
ten  with  elegance,  full  and  dispas 
sionate. 

IV.  THE  LIFE  OF  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 
By     James     Parton.       (Boston,     1874 : 
James  E.  Osgood  &  Co.)     Founded  on 
Randall's  work,  but  contains  much  in 
teresting  matter  of  its  own,  and  is  ex 
ceedingly    instructive    and    interesting. 
Highly    favourable    to    Jefferson    and 
sweepingly  severe  on  Hamilton. 

V.  THE  LIFE  OF  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 
By  Henry   S.    Randall,   LL.D.    (3   vol 
umes.  )       (Philadelphia,     1888 :     J.    B. 
Lippincott  &  Co.)     Full,    painstaking, 
and  sympathetic.     Contains  pretty  much 
everything  that  can  be  said  in  favour  of 
Mr.    Jefferson,    and   does   not  ruffle  or 
confuse  the  mind  by  stating  anything  on 
the  other  side. 

VI.  THOMAS    JEFFERSON.      By   James 
Schouler,    LL.D.       (New   York,    1893 : 


150  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.)  A  modern  histo 
rian's  summing  up  of  what  Eandall  and 
others  had  already  said. 

VII.  HISTORY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

DURING     THE     FlRST     ADMINISTRATION 

OF  JEFFERSON  (2  volumes) ;  DURING 
THE  SECOND  ADMINISTRATION  OF  JEF 
FERSON  (2  volumes).  By  Henry  Adams. 
(New  York,  1898  and  1890:  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons. )  Perhaps  the  best  ac 
count  of  these  important  periods.  None 
too  partial  to  Mr.  Jefferson,  but  indis 
pensable  to  a  thorough  understanding  of 
his  Presidency.  Certainly,  one  of  the 
very  best  of  the  works  on  American 
history. 

VIII.  THE    LIFE    AND    WRITINGS    OF 
THOMAS  JEFFERSON.     By  S.  E.  Forman. 
(Indianapolis,  1900  :  The  Brown  Merrill 
Co. )     A  compilation  from  state  papers 
and  private  correspondence.    Its  avowed 
purpose  is  to  put  the  teachings  of  Jeffer 
son  within  the  reach  of  all. 


I  I 


I  I 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 
LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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